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COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT 
FLORENCE 



i 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

Frederic Uvedale : A Romance 
Studies in the Lives of the Saints 
Italy and the Italians 
The Cities of Umbria 
The Cities of Spain 
Sigismondo Malatesta 
Florence and Northern Tuscany 
Rome (In preparation) 



1 




M^^\(_ 



IF YOU GIVE ME YOUR COMPANY YOU WILL LINGER IN THE VINEYARDS 



COUNTRY WALKS 

ABOUT 

FLORENCE 



EDWARD HUTTON 

AUTHOR OF "FLORENCE AND NORTHERN TUSCANY" 



-WITH THIRTY-TWO DRAWINGS BY ADELAIDE MARC HI 
AND TWENTY OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1908 



J) 






i^sg^ 



J 



FOR MY DEAR FRIEND 

JANET ROSS 

WITH LOVE 



INTRODUCTION 

'X'HIS little book is the result of a spring and 
autumn spent on the Florentine hills, when 
the writer was suffering from a strange dis-ease of 
body and of soul, the result as it was thought of 
too eager a pursuit of his art, but in truth the 
payment that was demanded for a failure to 
achieve at the time what he most desired. Fallen 
into the hands of doctors (strange, unaccountable 
folk), forbidden to work, but encouraged to " dis- 
tract himself," he began by devoting himself to a 
new exploration of Florence, and ended by dis- 
regarding her altogether for the country that lies 
about her. 

For indeed it is true — why should we deny it 
any longer ? — Florence is no more : there remains 
beside the Arno, between the hills where once 
Florence stood, the most beautiful museum in the 
world, the one city in Italy that seems to have 
lost all character, to be at various seasons almost 
English or German or American, and, save in the 
dog-days perhaps, never really Tuscan at all. 



viii COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Well, her success has been prodigious ; and she 
has sacrificed so much for it that one must not 
grudge her her small satisfactions. And then how- 
lightly, how cheerfully, she has assumed her new 
role ! There are no streets in any city south of 
the Apennines so clean as the Florentine ways ; 
and when she builds new houses no city, even in 
Italy, is more contemptuous of the past or more 
eager to follow where we have led. And yet — 
for beauty is immortal — in spite of all these 
changes, though the electric trams rush round the 
Duomo and have quite spoiled a great part of the 
Lung' Arno, though nearly all the statues are 
fig-leaved and in prison, and the pictures are 
invisible because of the crowds which follow some 
jackanapes quoting Browning, Florence remains 
one of the loveliest of the dead things of Italy- 
yes, a beautiful museum full of priceless master- 
pieces. 

But there came a night when I was weary 
of the city : all day the churches had given me 
no gift of peace, the galleries seemed full of dead 
things, the pictures old and vain with praise — their 
charm lost in that attitude they seem gradually 
to have assumed before the gaping tourists. 
I was weary of it all : only the night was sweet 
to me and full of mystery, and the wind among 
the cypresses above Corbignano answering the 
thunder in the hills. 

What was the desire in my heart that had 



INTRODUCTION ix 

made so fair a thing as Florence of no account ? 
It was that question which had driven me mad, 
which had confused the unaccountable doctors, 
and which I myself could not, or dared not, 
answer. This is the ghost in my life which for 
ever goes along with me smiling enigmatically, 
pathetically, as of old, in the labyrinth of my 
heart. And to it I can give no utterance ; for 
coming within the inexpressible light of that 
remembrance I am like one trapped in a whirl- 
wind, able only to whisper a vague immortal 
name. 

For many days I followed you, dear ghost, and 
then came one who drew me out of the whirl- 
wind, and in her beautiful palace, where the ladies 
of the Decameron told the deplorable, delicious 
tales which have always delighted the world, she 
lured me back with songs to the appearance we 
call reality, and for that and for a thousand 
other gifts beside I have dared to write her 
name in this little book, and to ^\vq it her, not 
that it is worthy or such as I would give her if I 
might choose, but that she will prefer it, knowing 
what it is. 

Now, when she had cured me I began to go 
into the lanes, into the woods, into the little 
villages among the children, back into the world 
— a new world. For I left the city for the 
country for this cause and in this manner to 
make me well. Then I walked through the 



X COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

by-ways from village to village, from church to 
church, from shrine to shrine, from oratory to 
oratory. You will see that sometimes I went by 
the rivers, sometimes by the valleys, sometimes 
by the hills. Often I kept to the highway 
because it was nobler than the fields, but often 
I left it at its best, for the by-ways were more 
beautiful than the road. If you give me your 
company you will linger in the vineyards, you 
will hear songs, you will see the olives silver in 
the wind, you will stoop to the flowers, you will 
make haste slowly because of the beauty of the 
day, and you will not think of hurry because of 
the beauty of the night. T am for quietness of 
sun and shade, between the cypresses I shall lead 
you from peace to peace, and you will dream of 
an old renown. 

E. H. 

Casa di Boccaccio 
October, 1907 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. In Boccaccio's Country i 

II. From Settignano to Bagazzano, Terenzano 

AND ROVEZZANO BY THE By-WAYS . . -31 

III. To FiESOLE, Castel di Poggio, and Vincig-. 

liata 44 

IV. Ponte alle Mosse, Peretola, Petriolo, 

Campi, and Brozzi 72 

V. Monte Oliveto, Ponte a Greve, Settimo, 

Legnaia . go 

VI. Bagno a Ripoli, Paterno, Ruballa, and 

Antella 105 

VII. Signa, Lastra a Signa, Gangalandi, Mal- 

MANTILE, and MoNTELUPO . . . . I16 

VIII. The Certosa, Pozzolatico, S. Gersole, S. 
GiusTO, S. Margherita a Montici, Torre 
DEL Gallo, Poggio Imperiale, S. Miniato 

AL Monte 138 

IX. To THE Impruneta 155 

X. To CoMPiOBBi, Montacuto, Villamagna, the 
Incontro, Miransu, Rosano, and Pontas- 

SIEVE 174 

XI. S. Maria a Castagnolo, Castel Pulci, S. 
Martino alla Palma, Mosciano, S. Maria a 

SCANDICCI, S. BaRTOLO IN TUTO, S. GlUSTO 

A SiGNANO, LeGNAJA 189 



xii COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

PAGE 

XII. PoGGio A Cajano, Carmignano, Artimino, S. 

MiNIATO A SiGNA I97 

XIII. RiFREDi, Quarto, Careggi, Convento della 

CoNCEZiONE, Via Bolognese, II Pino, Villa 
Salviati, S. Marta 215 

XIV. The Way of Catiline, Quinto, Sesto, Setti- 

mello, and Calenzano 232 

XV. RusciANO, Paradiso, Badia a Ripoli, Badia a 
Candeli, Rignalla, Vicchio a Rimaggio, 

AND Quarto 245 

XVI. From Fiesole to Saletta, Montereggi, the 
Convent of S. Maria Maddalena in Val 
Di MuGNONE, S. Andrea a Sveglia, S. 
Lorenzo a Basciano, and Fontelucente . 257 
XVII. Three Villas and a Romance of the Peer- 
age OF England 271 

XVIII. SiEci, Torre a Decimo, Doccia, S. Brigida, 
Opaco, the Madonna del Sasso, and 

Trebbio 292 

XIX. Monte Senario 304 

Index . . , . . . , . -317 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FROM DRAWINGS BY ADELAIDE MARCHI 

" If you give me your company, you will linger in 

THE VINEYARDS " Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

" Between the Cypresses I shall lead you from 

PEACE TO PEACE " . . . . . . . Z ^ 

S. Martino a Mensola 4 v^ 

CORBIGNANO 12 w' 

Casa di Boccaccio « . . 14 • 

"And all before us is spread out the City of 

Flowers ..." 20 -^ 

Oratorio del Vannella 34 • 

The Badia Fiesolana 46 -^ 

Etruscan Walls, Fiesole . . . . . . ^\v 

Roman Baths at Fiesole SS*' 

Castel di Poggio 62'' 

S. Maria a Peretola 72 

Cloister of S. Maria a Peretola .... 74 

S. Biagio a Petriolo 80 

At Campi Bisenzio 82 

A Country Procession 92 -^ 

The Ponte a Greve 94^ 

Old Gate at Badia a Settimo 96 ^^ 

xiii 



xiv COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

FACING PAGE 

Lastra a Signa 126 

The Castello of Malmantile 130 

Certosa di Val d'Ema 140 

The Turret of S. Miniato al Monte . . . 148 

The Impruneta 160- 

Old Houses near Impruneta 172 

S. Martino alla Palma 192 

The Villa Ferdinanda, Artimino .... 212 

Careggi with Monte Morello in the background . 230 

At the Gate of Calenzano 240 

The Nave a Rovezzano 254 

Fonte Lucente . . 270 

Villa Corsini 280 

Convent of Monte Senario 304 

FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 

The Annunciation 8^ 

From the Picture by Giusto d'Andrea in the Church of S. 
Martino a Mensola 

Madonna and Child 36 

From the Fresco by Botticelli in the Oratorio del Vannella at 
Corbignano 

The Baptism of Christ 44 

From the Picture by Lorenzo di Credi in the Church of S. 
Domenico at Fiesole 

The Triumph of Love 48 

From the Picture by Jacopo di Sellajo in the Church of S. 
Ansano, Fiesole 

The Triumph of Chastity 52 

From the Picture by Jacopo di Sellajo in the Church of S. 
Ansano, Fiesole 

The Triumph of Time 56 

From the Picture by Jacopo di Sellajo in the Church of S. 
Ansano, Fiesole 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv 

FACING PAGE 

A Tabernacle 78 

By Luca della Robbia in the Church of S. Maria, Peretola 
Madonna and Child with Saints .... 88 

From the Fresco by Francesco Botticini in the Church of S. 
Andrea, Brozzi 

The Nativity 8q 



From the Fresco by Mainardi in the Tabernacle at Brozzi 
(Fattoria Orsini) 

Crucifix 106 

By Lorenzo di Niccolo in the Church of S. Giorgio at Ruballa 
Madonna with Saints and Angels .... 108 

From the Picture by Bernardo Daddi in the Church of S. 
Giorgio at Ruballa 

S. Antonio Abate no 

From the Fresco by Spinello Aretino in the Oratorio di S. 
Caterina, near Antella 

St. Catherine of Alexandria 112 

From the Fresco by Spinello Aretino in the Oratorio di S. 
Caterina, near Antella 

Altarpiece 114 

By Agnolo Gaddi in the Oratorio di S. Caterina, near Antella 
Madonna and Child 136 , 

From the Picture of the School of Botticelli in the Church of 
S. Giovanni at Montelupo 

The Annunciation 150 

From the Fresco by Baldovinetti in the Church of S. Miniato 
al Monte 

The Annunciation . . . . . . . .151 

From the Fresco by Baldovinetti in the Church of S. Miniato 
al Monte 

Altarpiece . 164 ^ 

By Luca and Andrea della Robbia in the Cappella della Croce, 
S. Maria dell' Impruneta 

The Crucifixion 170 - 

By Luca della Robbia in the Church of S. Maria dell' Impru- 
neta 

The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin . . . 220"'' 

From the Picture by a pupil of Amico di Sandro in the Con- 
servatorio della Quiete, near Rifredi 



COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT 
FLORENCE 

I 

IN BOCCACCIO'S COUNTRY 

THE road to Ponte a Mensola, to Settignano, be- 
. tween the poderi walls, outside the barriera is 
one of the pleasantest about Florence ; and it is by 
this road we shall do well to pass first, on our way to 
explore that smiling country, which beckons us down 
the vista of every street in the city ; perhaps for Boc- 
caccio's sake, for he loved it well, as I have done, but 
certainly for our own, because, in spite of the tram- 
way, it is a quiet way, winding between the vineyards, 
bordered with the iris and the rose, like a stream 
almost on its way from the hills. 

And it is that most ancient torrent Afifrico which 
you meet at the gate, at what, in modern Italy has, 
alas, taken the place of the gate, the iron barriera^ 
where the peasants, little groups of them, wait anxiously 
with their baskets of country stuff, their little bundles of 
herbs, their carts of hay, with here a barrel of wine, 
there a load of poor household things, among which 
as among the ruins of a world, a little dog barks 
furiously unhappy, a little child sleeps as it were in 
Madonna's arms, while the State takes toll of their 



2 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

meagre earnings.^ For those who have not been 
ashamed to rob the nuns and to cast them out on the 
streets will have no scruple, we may be sure, as to 
their right to tax the very poorest, the hard labour of 
the fields, the half-starved peasant of the hills. 

Here by Affrico, where this sordid and sluggish 
business now gets itself done, indifferently enough we 
may be sure, in 1307 Corso Donati was slain. They 
took him as he fled, after a day's fighting in defence of 
Borgo degli Albizzi. On his way back to the city he 
had lost, weary with flight and war, he slipped from 
his horse, here by Affrico, and the Catalan guards, 
thinking it was but another ruse to escape, killed him 
with their lances as he lay in the dust, an old man 
heavy with armour and gout. Then, perhaps afraid 
of what they had done, they left him there ; and the 
monks of S. Salvi across the stream, carried the body 
into the church and later buried him. Four years 
later his body was borne away to Florence by his 
friends. 

S. Salvi is now a public monument : the Vallom- 
brosan monks are gone these thirty years, and instead, 
a Government official, as at the Dazio, is set on 
watch, lest you should see for nothing the Cenacolo 
of Andrea del Sarto which modern Italy stole from 
the Religious. 

But these are not country thoughts; they come to 
us only now and then when in a moment of pity or 
indignation the remembrance of old or new wrongs 
returns to us : the brutal exploitation of the weak by 
the strong, the vengeance of the ignoble on the 

^ •' It is progressive taxation turned topsy-turvy," says Pro- 
fessor Villari ; " the less a man has the more he pays." Fifty- 
four per cent, of the taxes fall on the poor and working classes. 
The State takes 17 per cent, as against 6 per cent, in England 
of the income of the country. 



S. MARTINO A MENSOLA 3 

humble and meek, the mediocrity that is modern Italy. 
Here, where even yet the ways are set with flowers, 
and the old olives are whispering together in the 
gardens, we leave Italy of to-day behind her iron bars, 
and come into the Italy of our dreams, that land which 
Chaucer loved, which taught Spenser to sing, of whose 
loves and hates Shakespeare has told us, down whose 
ways Byron rode with Shelley, in whose lap Keats pre- 
ferred to lie. And in such a land, truly the garden of 
the world, it is not for long that the tram will hold us. 
For after leaving the barriera, that abused machine 
swerves rudely to the right along a country road, 
rushes through Fontebuoni, a mere group of houses in 
the valley, and then winding under the hill of Poggio 
Gherardo comes at last to Ponte a Mensola, that 
village by the wayside where we are free. 

Casale del Ponte a Mensola is a tiny hamlet, 
scarcely more than a handful of houses, founded pro- 
bably by the Betti, who, with the Zati, were long ago 
the Signorioi this neighbourhood. It is not, however, 
any relic of their power or riches long since passed 
away, that to-day persuades us to linger at the foot of 
the hill of Settignano, but one of the most beautiful, 
and for us certainly one of the most interesting, 
village churches in Tuscany, S. Martino a Mensola, 
Boccaccio's parish church. 

Like the stream of Mensola over which it broods, 
S. Martino owes its birth to Fiesole : and standing as 
it does on the slope of Poggio Gherardo, it looks 
radiantly up at Vincigliata, across the valley to Cor- 
bignano, to the monastery under Settignano and to 
Settignano itself, whose white bell-tower of S. Mary is 
just visible from the courtyard. 

Nothing, indeed, that we may see from the outside 
suggests at all the antiquity of the church, which, ex- 
isting in some sort, probably as an oratory, in the 



4 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

tenth century, was founded in truth by one of our 
own countrymen — S. Andrea di Scozia, as Puccinelli ^ 
tells us. For it seems that when S. Donato of Scot- 
land was Bishop of Fiesole, he had for archdeacon 
one of his own nation, Andrew by name, who, as he 
wandered one day through the woods by Mensola, 
came upon a little ruined oratory dedicated to S. 
Martino. Seeing it roofless, the walls broken down 
and full of weeds and thorns, on his return he threw 
himself at the feet of Donato, begging the place of 
him as a gift ; and obtaining it, at once began to re- 
build it. And he begged so well of the people round 
about, that before long he was able to raise there not 
only a church, but even a small monastery, where 
he soon placed a few companions who took the rule 
of S. Benedict. Later they elected Andrew to be 
their abbot and Donato, who consecrated the church, 
gave them the habit. Notwithstanding this election 
Andrew seems still to have held his office of arch- 
deacon, dwelling with his monks at S. Martino and 
going up to Fiesole especially for the ceremonies in 
the Duomo. 

A miracle, or something like it, is recorded of him. 
It seems that he had a sister still in Scotland, and 
when he came to die he felt that he could not be con- 
tent without a sight of her ; and she, Bridget was her 
name, immediately stood before him, with some fish 
she had just caught — in Tees perhaps, ah, so much 
lovelier than Arno — in her hands. Then he told her 
how he had wished to see her and how God had 
granted him his wish, so that he might die happily. 
And, indeed, not long after, he breathed his last in 

^ Cf. Puccinelli, Cronaca delta Badia Fiorentina, cap. 48. 
And for much of interest concerning the church and parish, 
cf. Anon. (? Baroni), La Parrochia di S. Martino a Mensola 
(Firenze Tip. Militare di T. Giuliani, 1866). 




'ill" 

lii'ltf't i"fi 

111 ^ ''i|nP 



S. ANDREA DI SCOZIA 5 

his sister's arms. And the people round about 
brought those who were possessed of evil spirits, and 
those who were blind, and those who were any way 
sick, and as many as touched his body, as it is said, 
were made whole. So they buried him in the midst 
of the church. 

Now, however this may be, it is certain that in the 
latter part of the eleventh century the monastery had 
become a convent : and about the same time the 
church seems to have been rebuilt by Abbot Pietro II. 
of the Badia of Florence.^ Nothing further, however, 
is known of the church before 1281, when Ildeprando, 
son of Burnetto degli Alfani, left twenty-five libras 
florenorum parvorum for rebuilding it,^ And it 
may well have been then that the nuns found the 
bones of S. Andrea which, as Puccinelli tells us, they 
had sought so long. For it seems that the nuns, de- 
siring to know in what part of the church S. Andrea's 
body lay — and they had prayed long to know — in 
1285, a married lady, noble too, being dead, who 
was rich also and rarely beautiful, but suddenly 
deformed and full of sickness, was carried into the 
midst of the church. In that night S. Andrea ap- 
peared to the chaplain or confessor, with a jovial face 
and serene, telling him to lift away the dead lady 
from his grave for she annoyed him. And the chap- 
lain, thinking it only a dream, put it out of his mind 
and thought no more of it. But again on the following 
night S. Andrea appeared, with a severe countenance, 
and spoke shrewdly to the chaplain, who in fear and 
doubt did not dare either to speak of what he had 

^ Pietro II. was created Abbot of the Badia Fiorentina about 
1060 ; cf. Lami, Ecc. Flor. Mon., c, 971. 

^Arch. Dipt. Fior. Carte di S. Maria Novella. " Item 
Ecclesie Sancti Martini ad Mensolam pro restauratione deci- 
marum et fabrica dicte ecclesie libras vigintiquinque florenorum 
parvorum." 



6 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

dreamed, or to carry out the order of the saint. 
Then on the third night also S. Andrea appeared to 
him, with a disdainful face and a whip in his hand, so 
that for fear the monk could not rise from his bed. 
Nor even at dawn did he rise to say Mass, till at last, 
coming somewhat to himself, though still sorely 
frightened, he appeared before the abbess, the sweat 
pouring down his face, and his mouth open. She, 
with two nuns beside her, hearing the tale, bade 
him at once to say Mass while she and the whole 
nunnery set themselves to pray to their holy pro- 
tector Andrea. Now when Mass was said, the chap- 
lain, good man, rose from his knees, his face as it were 
covered with a dream, and scarce knowing what he 
did, lifting the dead lady he carried her into the cimi- 
tero, and then, still as though in a trance, returning 
to the church he dug some braccia deep in the place 
where till then she had been laid, and there was the 
very Cassa of the holy bones of Andrea which so long 
they had sought in vain. Then bringing lights, and 
sounding the bells, they bore it within the convent, 
giving it honourable burial amidst a great concourse 
of people, and not without accompanying miracles. 

To-day the body of S. Andrea lies under the high altar 
of the church where it was placed, not without pomp, 
in 1804. 

The rest of the story of the church amounts, indeed, 
to very little. There is a tradition, which we have no 
right to doubt, that the nave was rebuilt between 1300 
and 1360 ; but certainly in the beginning of the fifteenth 
century — it is possible that Sir John Hawkwood sacked 
the place when he harried the Florentines in 1364 and 
is said to have destroyed the Castle of Vincigliata — it 
was again in ruin and the convent almost deserted. It 
is at this time we hear of it in connection with the 
name of the great Florentine saint, Archbishop An- 



S. MARTINO A MENSOLA 7 

tonino. For the Pope in a Bull of 22nd December, 
1450,1 committed it to him, and he, at the request of 
the monks of the Badia Fiorentina, gave it again into 
their charge. The monks, however, had not money 
enough to rebuild it,^ so that they petitioned the Pope 
to be allowed to invest the priest Jacopo di Santi di 
Giovanni with the perpetual title, which he allowed.^ 
This priest, Jacopo, proposed to restore it himself, which 
he seems to have done, for it was certainly between 
1450 and 1475 that it got its present aspect, perhaps, 
as indeed seems likely enough, from the very hands of 
Brunelleschi himself. And, though in 1837 it suffered 
a not too disastrous restoration, it is a fifteenth century 
church still, as indeed we see as soon as we enter the 
beautiful pillared nave. 

Unless one happens to come to San Martino on a 
Festa, or very early in the morning, it is necessary to 
pass through the Canonica to gain admittance. With- 
in, you find yourself in a church of three naves, divided 
by eight arches, borne by columns, while over the altar 
is another and greater arch, all in the style of the fif- 
teenth century. The church has many pictures, simple 
country things full of the beauty of wild flowers, and 
all it might seem by rare and little-known painters. 
Were they of the countryside ? Did they perhaps come 

^ It was Nicholas V. who knew Florence very well, having 
been twice tutor there in his youth. Cf. also Lami, op. cit., 
c. 973- 

2 Of old the portico bore the inscription in English, ''Help, 
Help Ghot," which may well have dated from S. Andrea's time. 
It seems to have disappeared after the fifteenth century restora- 
tion. Cf. Anon. (? Baroni), op. cit. 

3 The brief is Nicholas the Fifth's, dated 12th March, 145 1. 
Jacopo di Santi di Giovanni de' Santi was a Canon of S. Lor- 
enzo and in 1^60 primo Rettore del canonica della casa de' Medici 
dal lato di Cafaggiolo, Abate of S. Egidio and Spedalingo of 
S. M. Nuova. He died Sept., 1472. Cf. Arch, della Badia, t. i., 
Memorandum, c. 206, and Anon. (? Baroni), op. cit., p. 18. 



8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

down from Settignano, where Desiderio was born, or 
through the olive gardens from Maiano, where Benedetto 
spent his childhood, or through the vineyards from 
Rovezzano, not far from the river, where another Bene- 
detto was born ? Or did they come out from the city 
— as indeed they do still — to see a country procession, 
for Corpus Christi maybe, or the Feast of the Assump- 
tion, and lingering in so sweet, so quiet a place, leave 
behind for just country people some simple thing such 
as they could love, the Annunciation of our Lady 
perhaps, and since the birds sang so sweetly there as 
Boccaccio knew — 

Era in quel tempo del mese di Maggio 
Quando i be' prati rilucon di fiori 
E gli usignuoli per ogni rivaggio 
Manifestan con canti i loro amori,^ 

or Madonna on a country throne among the flowers, and 
in her arms Bambino Gesu, playing with a nightingale, 
such as we see there to-day ? Yet it was not always 
thus that these pictures, so fortunately anonymous — 
for be sure if they bore a name that the critics knew by 
heart, or that would bring a few lire into the Uffizi, 
they would have been stolen away long ago — came to be 
painted. Certain great or notable gentlemen possessed 
the country round about. The Signore Amerigo Zati, 
who has hung his arms over the chancel arch, must have 
a picture painted for his country church. Madonna en- 
throned with Saints and Angels, Bambino Gesu in her 
lap, and under, who but himself, kneeling there on the 
steps, as he had done at Easter, doubtless, many a time. 
Looking at the picture to-day, there behind the high 

^ Boccaccio, Ninfale Fiesolano, parta i., st. xviii. Sung of 
this very place : For that too little-known poem is concerned 
with all this country and the loves of Affrico and Mensola, its 
quiet streams. 




THE ANiNU: 
From tlie picture by Giiisto d ^Indrea in 



;CIATION 

tlic Church of S. J\Iai-t:iic a Mensola 



S. MARTINO A MENSOLA 9 

altar, a triptych in which, on a gold ground, Madonna, 
in the midst, presents her little Son, whom she holds 
in her arms, with a brown bird, while on her left stand 
S. Giuliano and S. Amerigo, and on her right Amerigo 
Zati, the donor, kneels in adoration, you might almost 
fancy it a work of Orcagna or his pupils.^ On the left 
are S. Maria Maddelena with the vase of ointment, S. 
Niccolo Bishop of Mira, and S. Caterina with the palm 
of martyrdom : on the right S. Martino, S. Gregorio, 
and S. Antonio, while above, in the cusps, are Moses, 
David, Noah, and Joshua, and under, the Archangel 
and Madonna at Annunciation. In the gradino on 
either side you see the arms of the donor, and be- 
tween the stories of S. Caterina and of S. Niccolo, a 
Pieta with Madonna and S. Giovanni and the story 
of S. Martino, of S. Gregorio ; and under, the date 
MCCCLXxxxi Odobre. 

But this is not the only wonder in the church. In 
the Chapel of the Annunciation, to the left of the high 
altar, is a picture of the Annunciation somewhat in the 
manner of Angelico : where at dawn, in a garden, the 
angel steals through the shadow to Madonna praying 
under a loggia, and in a moment the Day-Spring has 
crept into the world. An inscription on the hem of 
Mary's robe seems to hide the name of the painter — 
could one but read it.^ 

And then in the Chapel of S. Antonio to the right 
of the chancel there is a triptych in which Madonna 
is enthroned with the Jesus Parvulus on her knees, and 
in His hand again that brown bird : on the left stands 
a virgin, and on the right S. Orsola, bearing a cross 
and trampling on a dragon as in the story : while in 
the cusps we may see, under a frieze of saints and 



^ Mr. Berenson tells me it is a work of Bernardo Orcagna. 
2 Mr. Berenson tells me it is a work of Giusto d' Andrea. 



lo COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

cherubim, S. Agostino and S. Stefano with our Lord 
blessing us in the midst : and in the gradino, the An- 
nunciation and Pieta, with donors and the martyrdom 
of S. Orsola and her virgins.^ 

Over the last altar in the north aisle stands a 
picture painted in 1474 attributed to Neri di Bicci, in 
which on a gold ground you see Madonna enthroned 
with her little Son, who plays with a swallow, while 
beside them stand S. Francis and S. John Baptist, S. 
Mary Magdalen and S. Clare. In the gradino you 
find Tobias and the angel, a Pieta with Madonna and 
the Magdalen on either side, and S. Niccolo praying 
on his knees with a bambino gathered under his 
cloak. 

Opposite, in the south aisle, there is a much dam- 
aged picture of Madonna with our Lord between S. 
Andrea and S. Sebastian, attributed to Cosimo Rosselli. 
Almost anonymous as these pictures really are, and 
without the fame of many a painting less lovely, they 
are just country flowers by the wayside, and such in- 
deed are the joy of Tuscany. Where else in the world 
can one find such things strewn along a country road 
in the by-ways among the olives and the vines ? They 
lighten our hearts, and in their country silence remind 
us, a little sadly perhaps, of that Italy which we have 
always loved and which has passed away. 

It is not, however, any church, be it never so beauti- 
ful or holy, that will hold us for long on a day in May 
in this laughing country about Florence, where the 
olives whisper to the roses that hem them in, and the 
roses mingle with the iris, and the iris with the corn. 
And indeed we are come — is it not so ? — to spend a day 
with Boccaccio, to follow him through the woods and 
the meadows from Mensola to Affrico. His footsteps 

^ This has been attributed, most doubtfully I think, to Agnolo 
Gaddi. 



CASA DI BOCCACCIO ii 

are still to be found on these hills by those who love 
him well enough to look for them ; northward and west 
through Valle delle Donne under Monte Ceceri that 
bare hill, hidden from S. Martino by the olive gardens, 
between Vincigliata and Fiesole, and Villa Palmieri on 
the lower slopes under S. Domenico, over the city. 

So returning a little on the way, as far as Mensola 
and crossing the bridge there, you follow the stream a 
little way up the left bank, turning to the right when 
you may, uphill towards the village of Corbignano. 
Before long you will come on that stony road to a 
house on your right hand, with two logge half 
smothered in roses and a little shrine of Madonna of 
the Swords. Casa di Boccaccio they call the place, 
but of old it was named Buonriposo, and before that 
Corbignano, and there Boccaccio's boyhood was 
passed. Perhaps by the courtesy of the owner of the 
place you will stay a little in the garden and see the 
beautiful courtyard with its old well and the ruined 
frescoes that may still be traced on the walls of what 
was once the tower, and the broken inscriptions. 
Then, lingering a little in so beautiful and so quiet a 
place, under the olives, perhaps you will think of 
Boccaccio. 

Nearly all those who have written of Giovanni 
Boccaccio, and they are many, have sought to prove 
that he was born in Paris in 1313, the son of a 
noble young French lady called Giannina, and the 
Florentine merchant Boccaccio di Chellino. "His 
father," Filippo Villani ^ tells us, "was Boccaccio of 
Certaldo, a village of the Florentine dominion ; he was 
a man distinguished by excellence of manners. The 
course of his commercial affairs brought him to Paris, 
where he resided for a season, and being free and 

1 Vite d. III. Fior., lib. ix., articolo Templari, See also Bald- 
elli, Vita di Giovanni Boccacci (Firenze, 1806), p. 271 ; and best 
of all Crescini, Contributo agli Shidi sul Boccaccio {Toxino, 1887). 



12 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

pleasant in the temper of his mind, was no less gay 
and well-inclined to love by the complexion of his 
constitution. There, then, it befell that he was 
inspired with love for a girl of Paris, belonging to the 
class between nobility and bourgeoisie for whom he 
conceived the most violent passion ; and, as the ad- 
mirers of Giovanni assert, she became his wife and 
afterwards the mother of Giovanni. " ^ 

As his admirers assert 1 But others say that Boccaccio 
never married her at all, while Suares, Bishop of Vaison, 
tells us that he saw a deed for Giovanni's legitimisa- 
tion by Papal authority, at Avignon in the seventeenth 
century. And, to make confusion worse confounded, 
Giovanni Acquettini makes Boccaccio say in a sonnet, 
written apparently "at the end of the fourteenth cen- 
tury " : "I was born at Florence at Pozzo Toscaneili 
and now lie buried in Certaldo ". ^ 

In all this confusion it is difficult to find one's way. 
All we know certainly is that it was believed by many 
at the time of Boccaccio's death that he was the son 
of a French lady. But this belief may very well have 
had no foundation in fact. In the A?neto, that little- 
known poem which contains the secret of Boccaccio's 
love for Fiametta, he tells us that her parents were 
of French origin, and that he himself was born not far 
from the place where Fiametta's mother first saw 
the light. ^ He then tells us that in his boyhood he 
wandered through Tuscany and later went to Naples. 
In another part of the same work he relates a story of 

^Domenico Aretino also says {Rime del Bocc, p. xxxiii.) : 
" Boccatius pater ejus . . . amavit quamdam iuventulam Paris- 
inam, quam, prout diligentes loannem dicunt, quamquam alia 
communior sit opinio sibi postea uxorem fecit, ex qua genitus 
est loannes ". 

2 J. A. Symonds, Giovanni Boccaccio (London, 1895), p. 97. 

2 " lo, nato non molto lontano dai luoghi, onde trasse origine 
la tua itiadre. ..." 



GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO 13 

a young Italian merchant who goes to Paris and there 
seduces a beautiful French widow. The son born to 
them was called Ibrida. It is difficult to believe that 
Boccaccio was speaking of himself under two disguises 
in the same book, but a careless or a too eager reader, 
especially one very curious concerning him, might well 
put two and two together and make five. We have 
seen in our own day the result of such interpretation 
with regard to Shakespeare, and certainly the fourteenth 
century was not more scrupulous than our own. May 
not this, then, be the only origin of the story of his 
French birth? It might almost seem so, for we have 
no facts of any kind to help us : even the date is 
uncertain. 

On the other hand, we know that Giovanni's father 
was twice married and that he lost both his wives dur- 
ing his son's lifetime : the first, Symonds suggests, 
about 1339, the second before 1349. The same writer 
insists that neither of these women can be regarded as 
Boccaccio's mother. Why not ? All Boccaccio's work 
proves, and he himself asserts, that his childhood was 
spent in the country round Florence, under Fiesole. 
As if unable to forget the lines of just these hills, the 
shadows in the woods here, the darkness of the cy- 
presses over the olives, it is always to this country he 
returns in thought wherever he may be, in the Ameto 
or in the Ntnfale Fiesolano or in the Decamerone. 
And, indeed, any doubt of his presence here is dis- 
missed by a document discovered by Gherardi,^ which 

^ See Roberto Gherardi, La Villaggiatura di Maiano, cap. iv. 
This is a MS. conserved by the heirs of the author, some time 
owner of Poggio Gherardo. Through the kindness of Mrs. Ross, 
the present possessor of that beautiful and famous place, I have 
been able to see a copy of it, to which indeed I owe all I have 
been able to say of Casa di Boccaccio. Gherardi, arguing from 
the Ameto, suggests that Boccaccio was born there. In the Pro- 
logue to that Cotnmedia, Boccaccio says : " Vagahondo giovine 



14 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

proves that on the loth May, 1336, by a contract drawn 
up by Ser Salvi di Dino, Messer Boccaccio di Chellino 
da Certaldo lately dwelling in the parish of S. Pier 
Maggiore and then in that of S. Felicita, sold to Niccol6 
di Vegna, who bought for Niccolo, the son of Paolo 
his nephew, the podere with houses called Corbignano, 
partly in the Parish of S. Martino a Mensola and partly 
in that of S. Maria a Settignano.^ Now, since we 
know that old Boccaccio owned this podere till 1336, 
it is as likely as not, on the evidence, that Boccaccio 
was born here, as that he was born in Paris or in the 
parish of S. Pier Maggiore. It may well be that the 
lady who died, as Symonds says, about 1339, died 
indeed in 1336, and that for that cause her husband 
sold his country farm, which, if her son were born there, 
she would have especially loved, but which her husband, 
if we may believe Giovanni's tales of him,^ found less 
lucrative than his business in the city and was there- 
fore glad to sell when he could. 

However that may be, and where all is hearsay and 
conjecture, each new theory becomes more improbable 
than the last, Giovanni certainly spent much of his 
boyhood here in Corbignano and knew and loved 



i Fauni e le Driadi abitatori del luogo (that is, the woods under 
Fiesole) solea visitare ; et elli forse dagli vicini monti avuta 
antica origine, quasi da carnalitd costreito, di cib avendo memoria 
con pietosi affetti gli onorava talvolta ". 

^The contract which is printed in full in Anon. (? Baroni), 
op. cit., doc. vi., minutely describes the podere. There can be 
no doubt of the fact which tradition supports that Casa di Boc- 
caccio is the place described. 
2 In the Ameto 

Li non si ride mai se non di rado ; 
La casa oscura, e muta, e molto trista 
Mi retiene, e riceve mal mio grado 
Dove la cruda, ed orribile vista 
D'un vecchio freddo, ruvido, ed avaro 
Ogn' ora con affano piu m'attrista. . . . 



THE "DECAMERON" 15 

every hill and valley and stream in the country round 
about.^ And if in Casa di Boccaccio to-day you can 
find little enough that remains from the time of Boc- 
caccio, part of the old tower that has been broken 
down and turned into a loggia, here a ruined fresco, 
there a spoiled inscription, yet through the trees on 
the hill beyond Mensola, Poggio Gherardo ^ rises still 
before its cypresses, well, almost as it may have ap- 
peared to Giovanni who, from this very place, must 
often have looked across the vineyards and the olive 
gardens to that old and beautiful palace of the hill. 
Even in Boccaccio's day was it not " one of those 
country seats, of which we have so many," which 
Pampinea speaks of in the opening pages of the De- 
camerone? And indeed at her suggestion it was 
thither those seven ladies and three gentlemen (of 
whom as Neifile reminds us, though we are like to 
forget it, "no one can say anything but good") fled 
away from the plague-stricken city on that Wednesday 
morning in May, 1348. "For there," Pampinea tells 
her friends, Fiametta, Filomena, Lauretta and the rest, 
" there we shall hear the song of birds, there we 
shall see the hills and valleys in all the sweetness of 
Spring and the cornfields waving like the sea itself; and 
there are the trees we love and the open sky which 
in that place, though it may seem for a while to be 
angry with us, does not long hide its beauty from us, 
and which is so much more lovely seen from the 

1 In the prologue to the book of rivers he speaks of Arno 
first : " quia patriae fiumen et mihi ante alios omnes ab ipsa in- 
fantia cognitus ". 

2 See Janet Ross, Florentine Villas (London, igoi), p. 131 : 
a most beautiful and learned book, full too of the delightful 
pictures, scattered like flowers among old prints, of Miss Nelly 
Erichsen. Mrs. Ross is the happy and generous possessor of 
Poggio Gherardo, and has much to say of interest about it and 
its peers in the Florentine contaclo. 



1 6 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

country than from within this deserted eity. Besides, 
the air is fresher there, and bread and milk and wine are 
plentiful, and we shall see, ah, fewer mournful sights. 
Yes, the country-folk die there as well as the citizens 
of the town, yet because they will be further from us it 
will not wring our hearts so sore." So they set out. 

" As soon as everything was ready . . . the next 
morning, which was Wednesday, as the day was 
breaking, the ladies with various of their serving- 
maids, and the three youths with three of their fol- 
lowers, left the town and went on their way. They had 
not gone more than two short miles from the city 
when they came to the place they had already de- 
cided on. This was on a small height removed a little 
distance from our roads on every side,i full of various 
trees and shrubs in full greenery and most pleasant to 
behold. On the brow of the hill was a palace with a 
fine and spacious courtyard in the middle and with 
loggias and halls and rooms all, and each one in itself, 
beautiful and ornamented tastefully with jocund paint- 
ings. It was surrounded too with grass plots and mar- 
vellous gardens and with wells of coldest water, and 
there were cellars of rare wines, a thing perhaps more 
suited to curious topers than to quiet and virtuous 
ladies. And the palace was clean and in good order, 
the beds prepared and made, and everything decor- 
ated with spring flowers, and the floors covered with 
rushes all much to their satisfaction." 

There Pampinea was crowned Queen " with an 
honourable and beautiful garland of laurel," and here 
at her command Panfilo began the immortal series of 
tales we know as the Decamerone, 

^ In the fourteenth century nothing but a mule track led to 
Settignano under Poggio Gherardo. The nearest roads must 
have been the Via Aretina Nuova by Arno, and the road to 
Fiesole. 



POGGIO GHERARDO 17 

The story of Poggio Gherardo, however, goes back 
further than 1348. In 132 1, it seems, Meglino di 
Jacopo di Magaldo Magaldi, the possessor of the 
place died " leaving by will part of this ancient pos- 
session of his family, to wit, ' the podere of Poggio and 
the buildings above the said podere where now are, 
and have been in times gone by, the loggia, the tower, 
the well, the water channels, the courtyard and all the 
garden and orchard with the fields and pergole which 
are enclosed and surrounded in part by walls, etc.,' to 
the Congregation of the Visitation ; with the obligation 
to build an oratorio or a chapel in the said house in 
honour of S. Zebedeus and to support a resident 
priest to say Mass every day for the repose of his 
soul ". The Magaldi family, however, did not like 
the terms of the Will and they brought the affair be- 
fore the Papal Court at Avignon, begging for leave to 
sell the place which many then, as now, would have 
liked to buy, cu77i sit in loco carissimo situatum. The 
Pope heard them and granted them their suit, partly 
in order that the daily Mass might be said, for the 
family pleaded poverty. So on 14th January, 133 1, 
the place was sold for 3,100 golden florins to Messer 
Bivigliano del gia Manetto de' Baroncelli and his 
brother Messer Silvestro. The Baroncelli did not 
enjoy it for long, for they were involved in the bank- 
ruptcy of the Acciajuoli — the greatest banking house 
in Florence — in 1345. The place seems then to 
have passed to the Albizzi, and \l may have been 
Pampinea Albizzi who was crowned Queen there, as 
Boccaccio relates in 1348 — and that would make her 
one of the ancestry of the divine Vanna of the Bar- 
gello, whom also I have loved. The Albizzi seem in 
their turn to have sold the place in 1354 to Andrea 
di Sennino Baldesi and then in 1400 the Zati held it, 
till in 1433 they sold it to Gherardo di Bartolommeo 



I 8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Gherardi, whose people held it for four hundred and 
fifty-five years, till, indeed, Mr. H. I. Ross bought it 
from them in 1888. 

"The entrance hall," says Mrs. Ross, from whose 
account of the place I have quoted, " is the * Loggia ' 
mentioned in the Deca7nerone, the arches of which 
were built up two or three hundred years ago. In the 
courtyard, the well, eighty feet deep, 'of coldest 
water,' still exists ; but, alas, the 'jocund paintings ' in 
the rooms have disappeared." 

But, indeed, we have lingered long enough even in 
so lovely a place as this old garden of Casa di Boc- 
caccio ; our walk lies before us — our walk on which 
Messer Giovanni has delayed us so long that it must 
needs be, he will go along with us through his own 
woods to Villa Palmieri. 

Leaving, then, Casa di Boccaccio in his company 
we mount the hill, continuing a few paces on our way 
till, turning suddenly to the left into the village of 
Corbignano, we follow the narrow street between the 
houses and, once more in the fields, mount up to the 
woods following the steepest way so far as the little 
Sanatorium. Then turning into the path to the left 
on the brow of the hill, winding in and out among 
the cypresses, with many a glimpse of the valley and 
the city so beautiful from here, we come to the little 
stream of Fossinaia, leaping on its way to join Mensola, 
in whose arms it is borne down to Arno. Crossing 
the stream and following the path to the left up to 
the road, which we follow too ever upwards, after 
some half a mile in the sweet scent and silence of the 
cypress woods, we come to a turning, down into the 
valley, on the left — the upper valley of Mensola. 
Following this road downwards over the stones, it soon 
turns suddenly across the stream, where a little mill 
breaks the spare waters over a wheel under the bare 



THROUGH THE WOODS 19 

sides of Monte Ceceri. The road turns to the left 
here under that barren hill where often you may hear 
the quarryman blasting the sullen rock that has built 
so much of Florence and Vincigliata too, of which, 
now that we have crossed the valley, we catch a 
glimpse among the trees on the hill we have left. 
And there are flowers there too, beside the stream, 
the wild flowers of Tuscany, and is it not Boccaccio 
himself w^ho sings to us : — 

Era in quel tempo del mese di maggio 
Quando i be'prati rilucon di fiori, 
E gli usignuoli per ogni rivaggio 
Manifestan con canti i loro amori, 
E' giovinetti con lieto coraggio 
Senton d'amore piu caldi i vapori, 
Quando la Dea Diana a Fiesol venne 
E con le ninfe sue consiglio tenne. 

Intorno ad una bella e chiara fonte 
Di fresche erbette e di fiori adornata, 
La quale ancor dimora appie del monte 
Cecer, da quella parte ove '1 sol guata 
Quand' e nel mezzo giorno a fronte a fronte 
E fonte Aqueli e oggi nominata : 
Intorno a quella Diana allor si volse 
Essere, e molte ninfe vi raccolse. 

Well, it is the very place. 

But ah ! Maecenas is yclad in claye 

And great Augustus long ygoe is dead. . . . 

Diana hunts no more in the cool woods at dawn, and 
the nymphs who would not wait for Giovanni, will 
they, think you, return for us, though we too cry on 
this very morning half in tears, yet ashamed of our 

joy, 

. . . aspettatemi un poco 
O belle ninfe, ascoltate il mio dire : 
Sappiate ch'io non venni in questo loco 
Per voi noiare o per farvi morire, 



20 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Ma sol per darvi e allegrezza e gioco, 
In quanto voi non vogliate fuggire : 
lo vengo a voi come di voi amico 
E voi fuggite me come nemico. 

Ah, they hear us not : and so, presently following the 
way uphill and then downwards into the group of 
houses, without a shop or even an inn, called Maiano, 
we pass, on the left, a church, S. Martino a Maiano, 
restored now almost out of recognition, but charming 
enough there by the wayside, behind its green plot, 
to make us linger in its shadow. And indeed, re- 
stored though it be, that little church is old enough, 
standing there as it has done, it and its fathers, since 
the eleventh century.^ It has been suggested that 
this may be one of the nine hundred and ninety 
churches which the Contessa Matilda caused to be 
founded in Tuscany. It was attached to a convent 
and seems to have fallen down on S. Bartholomew's 
Day at sunset in 1477 in a great storm, as Suor Barto- 
lomea says in her prayer to God and S. Martino for 
help. Possibly it was then that the choir was rebuilt, 
the tower certainly dates from about that time ; but 
it suffered other restorations in 1554, 1669 and 1820 
and in the later nineteenth century. Of all the works 
of art which the church is said once to have possessed 
few remain, and they are for the most part of the late 

^ Nevertheless the oldest memory of it I can hear of, is in 
the year 1477. It is as follows : " mcccclxxvii. A1 Nome 
di Dio Amen. lo suor Bartolomea faro memoria della spesa 
faro nella chiesa, la quale chadde per gran fortuna di tempo al 
di proprio di San Bartolommeo, in sulla ventitre ore chadde la 
chiesa, el campanile, elle champane ogni cosa si ruppe abbacte 
tticti e poderi e ulivi e vino, e nulla non ci si ricolse. Iddio e San 
Martino ci aiuti.^' Libro Debitor! e Creditor! e Ricordi segnato 
di no. 3. deir archivio del monaster© di Maiano esistente nel 
R. Archivio di Stato in Firenze, c. 41, And Anon. (? Baroni), 
La Parrochia di S. Martino a Maiano (Firenze, Tip. del Voca- 
bolario, 1875). 



THROUGH THE PODERI 21 

sixteenth century; and indeed neither they nor the 
old monastery, now a Fattoria close by, destroyed in 
the eighteenth century, will keep us long from the 
road. For at the corner, by the closed shrine, 
which holds a fresco in the manner of Ridolfo Ghir- 
landajo, we may look right across Val d'Arno to the 
hills of Chianti, to Torre del Gallo, that fantastic place, 
ind the hill of San Miniato, which Gianozzo Manetti 
loved so well that he climbed it every Sunday morning ; 
and ail before us is spread the City of Flowers under 
the olives and the corn. 

The great villa with the tower, so formidable a 
landmark in all the country between Settignano 
and Fiesole, belongs to Lord Westbury, the heir of 
Mr. Temple Leader. With its neighbour, // Palagio, 
it was once in the possession of the Tolosini. Andrea 
Tolosini's widow in 1464 sold it, however, to the 
Alessandri, then the possessors of Vincigliata. It 
seems, however, that on 24th August, 1481, it was 
destroyed in a storm, and Benedetto di Bartolommeo 
Alessar/:^"'! who rebuilt it, was, not long after, obliged 
to ceue - ' ''is rel^Hve Guido Sforza, Count of Santa 
Flora ^ in Mont' Amiata. Count Guido's son Fede- 
rigo sold it in 15 10 to Buonagrazzia, and from him it 
passed in 1546 to Alfonso di Luigi de' Pazzi, and 
there is a very strong tradition that S. Maria Madda- 
lena de' Pazzi ^ lived here for some time. But in 1679 
that branch of the Pazzi was extinct and the villa 
passed to the Grifoni, who, in 17 10, sold it to the 
Tolomei Beffi, who held it till 1830, when it passed 
into the hands of Mr. Temple Leader. 

1 For all concerning the Counts Sforza of Santa Flora, see 
In Unknown Tuscany, by Edward Hutton, with notes by 
William Heywood. [In the press.] 

2 For all that concerns S. Maria Madd. de' Pazzi, see Vitede^ 
Santi e Beati Fiorentini, by G. M. Brocchi (Firenze, 1751), and 
my Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), p. 257, etc. 



2 2 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Returning to the shrine, where four roads meet, we 
take that directly to the right out of Via delle Cave 
by which we came, and following it upwards for some 
fifty yards take the first way downwards to the left, 
Via d'Affrico they call it, for it leads across that now 
imprisoned stream. 

It will be remembered that at the close of the se- 
cond day of the Deca?ne?'one Madonna Filomena took 
the laurel crown from her head and crowned Neifile 
Queen, and it was she who then proposed that they 
should change their residence. 

"To-morrow, as you know," said she, "is Friday 
and the next day is Saturday, and both are days which 
are apt to be tedious to most of us on account of the 
kind of food we take on them ; and then Friday was 
the day on which He Who died that we might live 
suffered His Passion, and it is therefore worthy of 
reverence, and ought, as I think, to be spent rather 
in prayer than in telling tales. And on Saturday it is 
the custom for women to wash the powder out of their 
hair and make themselves generally sweet and neat ; 
also they use to fast out of reverence for the Virgin 
Mother of God and in honour of the coming rest from 
any and every work. Therefore, since we cannot, on 
that day either, carry out our established order of life, 
I think it would be well to refrain from reciting tales 
also. And as by then we shall have been here already 
four days, I think we might seek a new place if we 
would avoid visitors : and indeed I have already a 
spot in my mind." And it happened as she said, for 
they all praised her words and looked forward longingly 
to Sunday. On that very day the sun was already high 
when " with slow steps, the Queen with her friends 
and the three gentlemen, led by the songs of some 
twenty nightingales, took her way westward by an 
unfrequented lane full of green herbs and flowers just 



THROUGH THE PODERI 23 

opening after the dawn. So gossiping and playing and 
laughing with her company, she led them ... to a 
beautiful and splendid Palace before half of the third 
hour was gone." 

It is by the '* unfrequented lane " that we too shall 
pass to Villa Palmieri. For it winds between the 
vineyards over the meadows downward to Affrico, 
then crossing the stream mounts through the olives 
towards San Domenico. It might seem hard to find 
so vague a way, but indeed it is only hard to miss it, 
for whichever path you take, and there are indeed two 
by which you can pass, you will cross the valley of 
Affrico and come at last to the Church of S. Domenico 
under Fiesole. Of these two ways that is perhaps the 
pleasanter which follows the Via d' Affrico to the little 
river past Villa Ciliegio and Villa Palmerino. By that 
way, however, you seem to leave the way of the De- 
camerone, and certainly the Valle delle Donne, far above 
you under the Doccia. If you will not forego these 
and are not mindful of a scramble, where the Via 
d'Affrico divides, some hundred yards after it leaves the 
highway, take the path to the right and follow it across 
the valley, climbing up to a country road. Via della 
Fontanella at last, to win to San Domenico. By this 
way you pass close to that valley which Landor loved 
so well. 

Where the hewn rocks of Fiesole impend 

O'er Doccia's dell and fig and olive blend, 

There the twin streams of Affrico unite, 

One dimly seen, the other out of sight ; 

But ever playing in his smoothen'd bed 

Of polisht stone, and willing to be led 

Where clustering vines protect him from the sun. 

Here by the lake, Boccaccio's fair brigade 

Beguiled the hours and tale for tale repaid. 

It is true Boccaccio does not say so, but then Landor 
says he met him in the Elysian Fields, and truly he may 



24 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

have told him privately. What Boccaccio said about 
the place when he was yet living, however, may be 
found at the end of the tenth novel of the sixth day, 
which had the honour of being formally censured by 
the Council of Trent.^ It was a summer afternoon. 
Dineo had just been crowned King by Madonna Elisa ; 
the tales had been short that day and the sun was yet 
high, so that Madonna, seeing the gentlemen were set 
down to play (and such is the custom of men), called 
her friends to her and said : — 

" ' Ever since we have been here I have wished to 
show you a place not far off where I believe none of 
you have ever been : it is called La Valle delle 
Donne, and till to-day I have not had a chance to 
speak of it. It is yet early, if you choose to come 
with me I promise you that you will be pleased with 
your walk.' And they answered they were all will- 
ing : so without saying a word to the gentlemen, they 
called one of their women to attend them, and after 
a walk of nearly a mile they came to the place which 
they entered by a strait path where there burst 
forth a fair crystal stream, and they found it so beauti- 
ful and so pleasant, especially in those hot still hours 
of afternoon, that nothing could excel it : and as 
some of them told me later, the little plain in the 
valley was an exact circle, as though it had been de- 
scribed by a pair of compasses, though it was indeed 
rather the work of Nature than of Man. It was 
about half a mile in circumference surrounded by six 
hills of moderate height, on each of which was a 
palace built in the form of a little castle. . . . And 
then what gave them the greatest delight was the 

^•' Had the honour ..." The Council of Trent, says Lord 
Acton, " impressed on the Church the stamp of an intolerant age, 
and perpetuated by its decrees the spirit of an austere im- 
morality ", 



LA VALLE DELLE DONNE 25 

rivulet that came through a valley which divided two 
hills and running through the rocks fell suddenly and 
sweetly in a waterfall seeming, as it was dashed and 
sprinkled in drops all about, like so much quicksilver. 
Coming into the little plain beneath this fall, the 
stream was received in a fine canal, and running 
swiftly to the midst of the plain formed itself in a pool 
not deeper than a man's breast and so clear that you 
might see the gravelly bottom and the pebbles inter- 
mixed, which indeed you might count : and there 
were fishes there also swimming up and down in great 
plenty; and the water that overflowed was received 
into another little canal which carried it out of the 
valley. There the ladies all came together, and after 
praising the place, seeing the basin before them, that 
it was very private, they agreed to bathe. Bidding 
the maid to keep watch and to let them know if any- 
one came nigh by, they stripped off their clothes and 
went in, and it covered the beauty of their bodies as a 
crystal glass conceals a rose. After they had diverted 
themselves there for some time they dressed them- 
selves again and returned, softly talking all the way of 
the beauty of the place." 

To-day as we come upon the Valle delle Donne we 
miss that crystal pool, which already in the sixteenth 
century had vanished away, and instead we find a 
garden there as though those ladies had indeed be- 
come the roses of which Boccaccio dreamed. 

The little stream of which Giovanni speaks, not 
only in the Decamerone, is Affrico, and whether you 
pass by Via d'Affrico or by the path through fields 
you must cross it on the way to S. Domenico. At S. 
Domenico in the days of the Decamero?te there was no 
convent, for that was built by Barnaba degli Agli in 
the fifteenth century, so that it was altogether by the 
by-ways that Madonna Elisa led her friends home to 



26 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Schifanoja. We, less fortunate by far, must pass be- 
tween poderi walls, taking the road on the right south- 
ward back to Florence from the little village which 
has grown up round San Domenico : by this way we 
shall pass as close as may be to Villa Palmieri and 
enter Florence at last by the Barriera della Cure, 
where we may take the tramway to the Duomo. 

Villa Palmieri can never utterly be forgotten, since 
it lives for ever in the beautiful, untranslatable de- 
scription Boccaccio has left us of it in the beginning 
of the third day of the Decamerone. 

"Then the Queen" [it was Madonna Elisa] "led 
them to a most beautiful and sumptuous palace situ- 
ated somewhat above the plain on a small hill. 
When they had entered and inspected everything, and 
seen that the halls and rooms had been cleaned and 
decorated, and plentifully supplied with all that was 
needed for sweet living, they praised its beauty and 
good order, and admired the owner's magnificence. 
And on descending, even more delighted were they 
with the pleasant and spacious courts, the cellars filled 
with choice wines, and the beautifully fresh water 
which was everywhere round about. Then they went 
into the garden, which was on one side of the palace, 
and was surrounded by a wall, and the beauty and 
magnificence of it at first sight made them eager to 
examine it more closely. It was crossed in all direc- 
tions by long, broad and straight walks, over which the 
vines, which that year made a great show of giving 
many grapes, hung gracefully in arched festoons, and 
being then in full blossom, filled the whole garden 
with their sweet smell, and this, mingled with the 
odours of the other flowers, made so sweet a perfume 
that they seemed to be in the spicy gardens of the 
East. The sides of the walks were almost closed with 
red and white roses and with jessamine, so that they 



VILLA PALMIERI 27 

gave sweet odours and shade not only in the morning, 
but when the sun was high, and one might walk 
there all day without fear. What flowers there were 
there, how various and how ordered, it would take 
too long to tell, but there was not one which in our 
climate is to be praised, that was not found there 
abundantly. Perhaps the most delightful thing there- 
in was a meadow in the midst, of the finest grass 
and all so green that it seemed almost black, all 
sprinkled with a thousand various flowers, shut in by 
oranges and cedars, the which bore the ripe fruit and 
the young fruit too and the blossom, offering a shade 
most grateful to the eyes and also a delicious perfume. 
In the midst of this meadow there was a fountain of 
the whitest marble marvellously carved, and within — I 
do not know whether artificially or from a natural 
spring — threw so much water and so high towards the 
sky through a statue which stood there on a pedestal, 
that it would not have needed more to turn a mill. 
The water fell back again with a delicious sound into 
the clear waters of the basin, and the surplus was 
carried off through a subterranean way into little water- 
channels most beautifully and artfully made about 
the meadow, and afterwards it ran into others round 
about, and so watered every part of the garden, and 
collected at length in one place, whence it had 
entered the beautiful garden, it turned two mills, 
much to the profit, as you may suppose, of the 
signore, pouring down at last in a stream clear and 
sweet into the valley." 

If this should seem a mere pleasaunce of delight, 
the vision of a poet, the garden of a dream, we have 
only to remember how realistically and simply Boc- 
caccio has described for us that plague-stricken city, 
scarcely more than a mile away, to be assured of its 
truthfulness. And then Villa Palmieri is nearly as 



28 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

beautiful to-day as it was so long ago ; only while the 
gardens with their pergolas of vines, their hedges of 
jasmine and crimson roses, their carved marble foun- 
tains remain, the two mills he speaks of are gone, 
having been destroyed in a flood of the Mugnone in 
1409, less than fifty years after he wrote of them. 
" Two years later," the writer who has made these 
Florentine villas her own, and who is so happy in the 
possession of the queen of them all, tells us, "they 
were rebuilt and a third mill nearer the town was 
erected after the siege of Florence in 1529, and be- 
stowed upon the Foundling Hospital as compensa- 
tion for damage done to its farms." Indeed, the 
arms of the Ospedale are still to be seen on the wall 
there. 

But Villa Palmieri, or Schifanoja as it was then 
called, for within its gardens no care could live, be- 
longed about Boccaccio's time to the Fini family. 
It was Cioni de' Fini who sold it to the Tolomei and 
they called it Palazzo de' Tre Visi, as it is said from a 
bas-relief of the Blessed Trinity which stood there. 
In 1454, however, it passed to Matteo Palmieri, who 
enlarged it, though it was not he, but his descendant, 
Palmiero Palmieri, who built the place we see now and 
called it by his own name in 1670. It was he too 
who built the great arched terrace over the old road 
to Fiesole which divided the villa from the gardens, 
and there on that ancient way in a little house under 
the archway the Misericordia of Florence used to 
meet their Brothers of Fiesole. Then in 1874 the 
Earl of Crawford bought Villa Palmieri, and to him is 
owing the new road up the hill of Schifanoja to San 
Domenico : then he closed the old way, and now the 
brothers of the Misericordia meet in a little garden 
plot by the new gate. 

Vasari tells us that Sandro Botticelli painted an 



VILLA PALMIERI 29 

Assumption of our Lady for the altar of the Palmieri 
chapel in S. Pier Maggiore, with an infinite number 
of figures, the zones of the heavens, the patriarchs, 
the prophets, the apostles, the evangelists, the 
martyrs, the confessors, the doctors, the virgins and 
the hierarchies; all after the design given him by 
Matteo who was a man of letters and learning : ^ and 
he executed the work after a masterly fashion and 
with extreme diligence. He portrayed Matteo and 
his wife kneeling at the foot of the picture. The 
picture seems to have aroused the suspicions of the 
Inquisition on account of its supposed heresy, so that 
the Palmieri carried it away from San Pier Maggiore 
to their villa here under San Domenico, where it was 
walled up till the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
when it was sold. Some time later the Duke of 
Hamilton bought it and in 1882 it passed to the 
National Gallery. And as it seems, Vasari was wrong. 
It is not the work of Sandro at all, but of Botticini, 
and as for its heresy there seems indeed but little room 
for it in that heaven filled with the soldiers of the 
Catholic Church. 

So we pass on our way, leaving that beautiful villa 
behind us, perhaps in the twilight, the twilight that as 
we come into Florence is full of the gold and silver 
lights of the streets in which, after the labour of the 
day, the whole city seems to be gathered and where 
amid those innumerable voices something fades from 
our remembrance : — is it the voice of Boccaccio that in 



1 Matteo Palmieri was born in 1405. He studied under Carlo 
Marsuppini and pronounced his funeral oration in S. Croce in 
1453. He is the author of Delia Vita Civile and other Latin 
works. His Citta di Vita, however, which was never published, 
strangely enough got him most fame. It is in terza ritna and 
full of the Platonic philosophy of the time. See also Vespasiano 
Bisticci, Vite di Uomini Illustri (Firenze, 1859). 



30 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the fields and the vineyards seemed so friendly and so 
fitting, but which here in the modernity of Florence 
has no place any more amid the calling of the news- 
boys and whirr of the electric tram that — ah, surely — 
will bear us home ? 



II 

FROM SETTIGNANO TO BAGAZZANO, TER- 
ENZANO AND ROVEZZANO BY THE 
BY-WAYS 

T T is but half an hour in the tram from the Piazza 
^ del Duomo to Settignano. The little village is set 
on the lower slopes of the hills about three miles from 
Florence, and there, as it is said, though others claim 
the honour for Corbignano, Desiderio da Settignano, 
the famous sculptor, was born, and Michelangelo spent 
his childhood. Founded, as the Settignanesi like to 
believe, by the Emperor Septimius Severus, who named 
the place after himself, Settignano is to-day just a 
village, not too far from the city, nor too near the gate, 
where indeed you may have all the joys of the country, 
that courtesy for instance of which Leon Alberti speaks, 
without foregoing the pleasures of the town, such as 
they be in Florence, a little languid certainly, as though 
in the corridor of a beautiful museum a crowd of people, 
at heart somewhat impatient of their surroundings, had 
decided to pass their time, or to make holiday. 

But here in Settignano, where of an evening the girls 
still walk arm in arm to and fro in the narrow climbing 
street, while the young men lounge in groups in the 
doorways, watching them slyly, curiously, almost care- 
fully, as they pass, the dissonance, the incongruity of 
the city where the tram, rushing with the beating of a 

31 



32 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

huge bell among the statues, or under the porch of a 
church, or dangerously among the children playing in 
the narrow ways, is not to be found, here at least Leon 
Alberti's words still come home to us. " The country 
is gracious, trustworthy, true. If you give yourself to 
it patiently and lovingly, it never seems to be satisfied 
with what it does for you, but continually adds re- 
ward to reward. In spring ... it will give you con- 
tinual delight, green leaves and flowers, sweet smells 
and the songs of birds ; so in every way making you 
gay and joyful, since everything smiles upon you, and 
promises a good harvest, filling you with all sorts of 
hopes, delight, pleasure. ..." 

And after all is not our chief delight in these country 
walks in the country itself, the flowers by the wayside, 
the wind among the flowers? Those works of art, 
pictures, statues, churches, after all are but secondary 
delights where Nature is so fair, so marvellous an artist 
in the service of man. That line of hills across the 
city towards the Carrara hills, how beautiful it is, how 
passionate, how difl"erent too from anything we may 
find in England, where truly the world is richer but 
yet seems to lack some profound meaning that these 
Tuscan hills, with their noble and gracious gesture^ 
certainly express, so that often at dawn or at evening 
looking upon them some secret joy or sorrow seems 
suddenly born again in our hearts, some new emotion 
we had not felt before. And ever after, when we look 
on even the most splendid landscapes in England, the 
north coast of Cornwall, for instance, that thrusts back 
the sea, or the immense and profound wilderness of 
Dartmoor, something seems to have been lost to us 
and those passionate landscapes seem perhaps a little 
over-expressive, a little melodramatic as we say, as 
though in their eagerness they had tried to express more 
than there was to say, and lacking a certain reticence. 



SETTIGNANO 33 

had become, as it were, insincere, their tragic beauty a 
little out of place, where everything has been established 
from the beginning, and all is yet so prosperous and 
so well. 

It is upon one of those holy places so common 
and still so lovely in Tuscany that you come, when 
leaving the tram at Settignano, you find yourself 
in the Piazza there, before the little Church of S. 
Maria. Although a church has existed here certainly 
since the twelfth century, little or nothing seems to be 
known of its history, save that in the fourteenth cen- 
tury it was under the patronage of the Baroncelli, 
those Signori of Poggio Gherardo, while in 15 18 it 
became a Frioria, and was restored and rebuilt in the 
style we now see in 1595, the baptistery having been 
added in 1620. 

There is but little that is rare or beautiful in the 
church ; only over the second altar in the south aisle 
one of the pupils of Andrea della Robbia has carved a 
Madonna and angels, five statues glazed in white, set 
against a modern painted background, while in the 
oratory close by, over the doorway within, is a bas- 
relief of the Madonna and Child attributed to Desi- 
derio da Settignano. Humble though these works 
be, we should not care to pass them by ; and then, 
at the canonica here, you will find the sacristan, who 
will lead you through the olive gardens to another 
oratory. Oratorio del Vannella they call it, above Cor- 
bignano on the way to the hills. 

Following the road that leads out of a corner of 
the Piazza, behind the tramway, downhill into Piazza 
di Desiderio, you turn suddenly into a lane on the 
right between the houses, and presently come upon 
a brown convent of Olivetani monks, on the hillside 
among the olive gardens, a modern building of our 
own day. Passing behind this, almost at once you 
3 



34 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

begin to descend by a path somewhat rough and 
perilous that leads down to a little stream, a tributary 
of Mensola, and crossing it, you mount the opposite 
hill, almost as abruptly as you have descended, and there 
at the top beside a country road above Corbignano 
stands the little oratory, where Mass is said only once 
in the year. 

The Oratorio del Vannella was, in its origin, just a 
wayside shrine, and it would have, indeed, no interest 
for us at all to-day, but that over the altar there Sandro 
Botticelli has painted his first fresco. Madonna Mary, 
wdth her little Son in her arms. 

It is certainly no common beauty we have come 
to see all the way through the olive gardens, out of 
the spring sunshine into this deserted chapel by the 
roadside, but one of the rarest things in Tuscany, the 
first work of a great master still in its place where he 
set it over the altar of a country church. The only 
painter among his contemporaries of whom Leonardo 
has thought worthy to speak, Botticelli, in a genera- 
tion of naturalists, comiCS to remind us of all the pass- 
ing beauty of the world, its spiritual beauty and pathos. 
He is a visionary painter for whom nothing really ex- 
ists that is not the creation of his own subtle and 
wayward spirit. In his work in the museums now so 
famous, a certain weariness, a divine sadness, seems 
to have fallen even on the goddess of joy, and for 
him certainly Madonna is become half reluctantly 
the Mother of God. How languidly even here in his 
first picture she holds between her hands "The De- 
sire of all Nations," almost as it were in spite of her- 
self, and certainly without joy. And yet He whom the 
Magi have perhaps just worshipped, does not turn 
away from her, or indifferently receive her love with 
ours, but desires her, yes, even as we do, stretching out 
His hands. Why is she so sorrowful ? She is like a lily 



f 


1 


"^Hh 


ill'i; 




1 

i 
1 

3 




S^S 



BOTTICELLI'S FRESCO 35 

beside a dry stream swooning in the sun, she is like a 
rose in the desert that is already languid at dawn ; in 
her lap lies the King of kings, yet she is afraid. 
Her exaltation has passed from her, her lips can no 
longer form the word Magnificat, in the silence after 
the song the reaction has come, she has remembered 
only her intolerable honour ; already the endless jewels 
of the rosary glitter about her feet, the Crown of 
crowns is too heavy for the head that has bent even 
under the weight of the lilies of the Annunciation, the 
marvellous vocatives of the Salve Regina have be- 
wildered her : she but a girl still, turns to play with 
her little son and lo, not he, but God Himself lies 
in her arms. 

It is strange to find here in the earliest work of 
Botticelli the dream that was to dominate his life, 
already precisely understood and completely expressed. 
Only the head of Mary, maybe, comes to us untouched 
from his hand, but it is enough ; in this his earliest 
picture we see the intention of all his work, and under- 
stand both it and his tragedy. 

One might go far along any country road before one 
found again so fair a thing as this, and yet in some 
subtle way every line of the hills in this country about 
Florence, every valley full of delicate shadow or sun- 
shine, might seem to have gathered a new subtlety 
and sweetness from his work, that at last we have come 
to see because of him. Without the sheer blessedness 
of Umbria, the soft sweet light on the hills there, the 
immense vistas of her long and silent valleys, the 
country about Florence has a charm perhaps more 
subtle and more living, capable too of a keener and a 
more human joy. It is just this strange keen beauty, 
as it seems to me, that you find expressed in all Botti- 
celli's work in those sensitive and wayward lines, so 
expressive and so passionate too, which are never over- 



36 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

emphasised or allowed to degenerate into mannerism 
or self-consciousness,^that, if we live there long enough, 
we shall see have so much in common with the hills, 
their pathos, their delicate appealing beauty. Some- 
thing of this we may hope to discover as we pass along 
these country roads from shrine to shrine, from village 
to village, between the valleys and the hills. And 
indeed to the seeing eye, nothing could be more delicate 
and lovely than the view towards Settignano behind 
the group of cypresses at the door of this little wayside 
chapel Oratorio del Vannella. Standing there- a mo- 
ment before I went on my way, still with that vision 
of Madonna hidden in my heart, I seemed to begin to 
understand or to feel the strangeness of the beauty of 
these hills, within which Florence lies like a rose in the 
valley beside Arno. 

But our way lies eastward away from the city, we 
follow the road to the hills, where it leads round the 
valley through the olive gardens till, where a steep 
cypress avenue climbs to the left and the road itself 
winds to the right past the little cemetery of Settignano, 
we keep straight on between the houses, crossing a 
little stream, and presently climbing the hillside among 
the vines. Fossataccio they call the place, and there in 
an old villa beside the road, called now Casa Romanelli, 
as it is said Desiderio da Settignano was born in 1428, 
and indeed a stone in his honour still marks the place. 

But it is not, perhaps, of him we shall think as we 
follow the stony way through the vineyards on the 
hillside, but of the beauty and wonder of the country 
that at every step is more exquisitely spread out before 
us. To the west Vincigliata rises out of the cypress 
woods, to the south lies Arno, about to be lost in the 
City of Flowers, while, on the hills below us, Settignano 
stands like a country girl among the olives in the sun. 
Then after passing on the right a long peasant's house, 




MADONNA AND CHILD 
From the fresco by Botticelli in the Oi-atorio del I'annella at Corbi^na7to 



POGGIO GHIANDELLI 37 

we too turn that way, coming not long after into the 
main road from Settignano that passes Castel di Poggio 
on the way to Mugello. Following it upwards as it 
turns almost on itself, at the top at the first break we 
turn to the right, and immediately when we can to the 
right again, following a by-way under the side of a 
wood on our left. If you should be in doubt, though 
indeed you should not be, ask for the road to Bagaz- 
zano, but should there be no one about, you may know 
you are right by the great cross which you pass on 
your right about two hundred yards after you have left 
the highway, where the fields become pure again, and 
a little hill rises between you and Amo. 

Climbing this hill for a moment, Poggio Ghiandelli is 
its name, all the world of the Fiorentino seems spread 
out before you. Far away northward and west on a 
clear evening after rain, you may see the fantastic 
beautiful hills of Carrara, their white peaks like a vision 
almost transparent, or purple or rose-coloured in a sun- 
set that has overwhelmed the earth in its fleeting glory. 
To the south lie the far hills about Siena, over Val 
d'Ema and Chianti, and maybe you may spy Volterra, 
and perhaps, but this I have never seen, the horn of 
Mont' Amiata on the verge of the Patrimony. West- 
ward Arno winds across the plain to Signa like a riband 
of silver and gold, and there Prato lies like a rose by 
the wayside, and Pistoja at the foot of the mountains. 
But it is not any splendour such as these that will hold 
you long, while you may look eastward up Val d'Arno, 
on the weir that breaks, green and white, under Com- 
piobbi among the cypresses, and when you lift up your 
eyes you may see the hills. They are not the hills of 
Tuscany, though Vallombrosa lies there high on their 
flanks and Arno flows beneath them, but they seem 
like Umbrian hills, stained with blue or sepia or purple, 
as the sun shines, or the day, as they tell you here, is 



38 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

white, or the dawn grows into morning, or evening falls. 
Like vast precious stones they lie on the confines of 
my dreams, and truly as they seem to say, Umbria is 
there, that dreamland full of opening valleys, where at 
every turn of the way there is a little lonely hill, and 
on every hill a little city, and in every city some marvel ; 
here — who knows — waits some golden-haired Princess, 
ah, to vanish away ; there in some ruined cloister loiters 
a little saint, and in the valley at evening God Himself 
must surely walk in the Twilight. 

Sometimes at evening, weary of Tuscany, I have 
watched these hills from this very place, lying among 
the corn listening to the voices of the reapers till 
night has hidden them in her shadow ; but most 
often I have watched them in the early morning 
before the cicale begin to sing, when the labour of 
the day is yet to come, so that their nobility and 
beauty might stay with me all day long, and they 
might be my barrier, as it were, against all insidious 
and material things. And having once seen them, 
here in Florence I continually sought them out when 
I was tired or sorry, because they are full of pro- 
mises, because . . . 

Well, it is this landscape that lies before you — ah, 
if you can see it — in the way we shall go. For return- 
ing to the path we follow it over the brow of the hill 
and across the fields that are almost like downs here 
above the woods, to a great clump of trees that partly 
hides a ruined house on the hill before us ; and that 
is Bagazzano, which of old was a hunting-lodge of the 
Medici. The name belongs truly to the hill, Poggio 
Bagazzano, on which the villa stands rather than to 
the villa itself, for long before the Medici came to any 
eminence, there was a castle here belonging to the 
Alberti Ristori, which was destroyed by the Medici 
after Montaperto. The place seems indeed to have 



TERENZANO 39 

come to the Medici only in the sixteenth century, 
when the beautiful but ruined buildings we see were 
built. 

To the right, not far away rises another hill, Poggio 
della Selva, with a villa or palace rather, that was once 
in the possession of the nuns of S. Maria Maddalena 
de' Pazzi. You may see the palace if you return some 
four hundred yards on your way, and take the road to 
the left. By this way, too, you may reach the village 
of Terenzano, as you may from Bagazzano itself, by a 
path through the vineyards, which finds the road 
between Settignano and Compiobbi about a quarter 
of a mile west of the village. Having won to it turn 
to the right towards Florence, and where the road 
first divides, take the way to the right and follow it 
till you come into Terenzano. 

At Terenzano the sculptor Simone Mosca was born 
in 1492. He was a not very famous pupil of Andrea 
Sansovino, and carved among other things the Adora- 
tion of the Kings in the Chapel of Madonna in the 
Duomo of Orvieto, dying there in 1553. But it is 
not for his sake we are come to Terenzano, but be- 
cause of the Church of S. Martino there, which still 
keeps about it much of its ancient beauty in the 
frescoes beside the altar, for instance, the work of the 
pupils of Taddeo Gaddi, where you may see Madonna 
and our Lord with S. Lorenzo, and S. Jacopo, and 
again S. Maria Maddalena between S. John Baptist 
and S. Martino ; or in the ancona, a little spoiled, 
where you may see Madonna with her Son, and 
about her S. Martino, S. Lorenzo, S. Gregorio Magno, 
and S. Genoveffa, while under is this inscription : 
Questa tavola a fatto fare Domenico dell' Aveduto per 
rimedio dell' anima sua e de' suoi discendenti. Anno 
Domini mccccii del mese di giugno al tempo di Ser 
Piero . . . Lorenzo pinsit. 



40 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

And indeed Lorenzo di Niccolo, the son of Niccolo 
di Pietro Gerini, was the painter. You may see his 
work, lovely enough to be better known, at Cortona, 
where in S. Domenico he has painted the Coronation 
of the Virgin. 

From Terenzano you follow the road as it winds 
about the hillside back towards Florence to the Croci- 
fisso in Alto, where suddenly at a turning of the way 
you come once more in sight of the city, and there 
built in the rock is a little shrine with a spoiled 
fresco of the fourteenth century still visible over the 
altar. 

It is directly in front of this shrine at the top of 
the hill that a way paved with stones leads steeply 
down the hillside on the left towards Arno. Follow- 
ing it down past the peasant's house, you take the 
first turning to the right, and then the first to the left, 
not forgetting in your anxiety to find the road to see 
the glimpses the way gives you of Arno over the 
vines between the olives. Then where four ways 
meet, keep straight on, turning neither to right nor 
to left. At last — and the way is beautiful and made 
for lingering — you come to a road, and in a moment 
find yourself in the courtyard of the famous villa 
Mont' Albano. Turning to the right along a wind- 
ing road, you come out before the place, perhaps a 
little over-restored, but once lovely enough, for Michel- 
angelo held it for one of the most beautiful castles 
that he had seen. Long and long before that, the 
Tedalda held it, and it seems to have remained in 
that family originally from Fiesole till, in 1538, Bartolo 
Tedalda left half of it to the Church of S. Andrea 
at Rovezzano. This division seems at last to have 
caused the ruin of the place, which was reduced in 
the eighteenth century to a very modest villa almost 
lost among ruins. Then in our own time Commen- 



LORETINO 41 

datore Bolla came into possession of it, and restored 
it as we now see. Of old it must have dominated 
the Via Aretina Nuova to which we now descend, 
passing on the way another famous place, Lore- 
tino, which belonged apparently to a branch of the 
Tedalda family called Tedaldini, Ghibellines all of 
them and of considerable power in Florence where 
they possessed palaces and towers. But early in the 
fifteenth century Loretino came into the hands of the 
Pandolfini. Can it have been of this villa old Agnolo 
Pandolfini was thinking when, talking to his sons and 
teaching them his somewhat narrow, yet wholesome 
and delightful wisdom, he reminded himself of those 
villas near Florence, some like palaces almost — some 
like castles, " in the purest air in a laughing country 
of sweet and lovely views, where are no fogs, nor 
bitter winds, but always fresh water and everything 
is healthy and pure "? 

It is but a step from Loretino still by the winding 
road, that now passes over the railway, into Via Are- 
tina, where you turn to the right following the highway 
into Rovezzano. And here indeed we are come out 
on a Roman road. The Via Aretina, or to give it 
its true name, Via Regia Romana Postale per Arezzo, 
is in a great part but a rebuilding or retracing of the 
ancient Via Cassia, which from the times of the 
Emperor Hadrian, if not before, led out of Porta del 
Popolo across Ponte Molle to Florence, only it used 
to pass over the hill of S. Donato in Collina on the 
other side Arno, and entered the city by Porta S. 
Niccolo. Later, however, when it was safe, the first 
two posts of the road out of Florence were changed, 
so that the road ran, not by the short difficult way 
over the hills, but through Val d'Arno out of Porta 
alia Croce, the first post being at Pontassieve where 
it met the Forli road, the second at Incisa, where it 



42 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

crossed the river. By that way it was nine posts and 
a half to Lago Trasimeno within the confines of 
Umbria. A most interesting and delightful book 
might well be written on the old roads of Italy, and 
indeed one can imagine few subjects more interesting. 
An infinite leisure still possesses them, there is not 
one among them all that is not still beautiful, leading 
to splendid and famous things. Via Francigena, Via 
Emilia, Via Flaminia, Via Appia, Via Cassia, how 
those names appeal to us if we care even a little for 
the spiritual fatherland of us all. Too many of us 
cling helplessly to the railway, but now that the 
automobile is to be found in every village, the roads 
will get back their own, and I who have tramped them 
all in the rain and the sun, cannot but smile when I 
think of that new Italy, Italy herself, waiting there 
by the wayside for the traveller who has till now seen 
only the mongrel cities. 

But by this we should be in Rovezzano, on the 
outskirts at least, and it is there on your right as you 
enter the village, you come upon a great shrine by 
the way, built and painted in 1408, where Madonna 
with her Son in her lap waits among the saints to 
bless you on the road to Rome. It is a work of that 
same Niccolo di Pier Gerini whose son painted the An- 
cona in S. Martino at Terenzano, just a flower by a 
somewhat dusty wayside ; but where else in the world 
to-day will you find flowers at all ? Not far away in a 
little Piazzetta on the other side of the way another 
shrine stands, where some pupil of Andrea del Sarto 
has painted Madonna, while our Lord is playing with S. 
Giovannino ; like any mother to-day in these country 
places sitting at her door watching her little son. 

And then just here among the houses the Church 
of S. Andrea stands, a humble place enough, and more 
than a little spoiled they tell you by the earthquake, 



ROVEZZANO 43 

spoiled certainly for us to this extent, that the people 
on this account have covered up the thirteenth century 
picture of Madonna over one altar there so that you 
may not see it. Little or nothing remains in the church 
of any interest at all, but in the sacristy there is a very 
beautiful blue and white terra-cotta in the manner of 
Luca della Robbia, Madonna holding her Divine Son 
in her lap while He plucks a lily just within His 
reach. And then upstairs in the priest's house there 
is a stucco bust of S. Giovannino, one of those rare 
coloured heads of the fifteenth century, such as An- 
tonio or Benedetto da Rovezzano may well have made 
for love, or for the honour of his birthplace. 

Not far away along the road to Florence, is the 
Church of S. Michele Arcangiolo, with a beautiful door- 
way of the sixteenth century that the Bartolini-Salim- 
beni, Carocci tells us, caused to be built ; while within 
is another thirteenth century picture of Madonna, and 
over the door of the Canonica a little statue of della 
Robbia ware, S. Michael himself, who seems to stand 
on guard. 

Just here you may, if you will, find the tram for 
Piazza del Duomo, or turning up the Via Capponcina 
just beyond S. Michele return to Settignano, passing 
under the villa of Signor Gabriele d'Annunzio, La 
Capponcina, past the door of the beautiful villa of La 
Duse, La Porziuncola, and so to S. Maria a Set- 
tignano, and the tramway back to the city. 



Ill 

TO FIESOLE, CASTEL DI POGGIO, AND 
VINCIGLIATA 

T^HERE are many ways to Fiesole : one goes out 
-■■ of the Barriera della Cure by Via Boccaccio, one 
by Via della Pazzola, and one again by S. Gervasio, and 
that is the way of the tram. And for our walk that is, may- 
be, the most convenient, though certainly less than the 
best (which leads you behind the gardens of Villa Pal- 
mieri to S. Domenico at the foot of the great hill), for 
to-day it will be well to go to S. Domenico betimes in 
the morning to spend at the least the hour before noon 
there, and then climbing up by the old way into Fiesole 
to take lunch on the terrace of the Albergo Aurora, 
whence the view is so famous and fine over Florence ; 
and after, to see the city before setting out in the cool 
of the day, for the walk by Castel di Poggio through 
the woods to Vincigliata, and home again by Ponte a 
Mensola. 

San Domenico, as its name implies, is a small village 
which has gathered round the Dominican convent of 
San Domenico, half-way up the hill of Fiesole. It was 
Jacopo Altoviti, Bishop of Fiesole, who began the 
convent, for in the beginning of the fifteenth century 
he gave a vineyard there to Frate Giovanni Domenichi, 
who in 1406 began to build the Dominican church 
and convent we see. Many disputes as to the property 

44 




Frotn the pictif) 



THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 
' by Lorenzo di Credi in the Chicrch of S. Domeiiico at Fiesole 



S. DOMENICO A FIESOLE 45 

followed, and money not being forthcoming, the work 
was about to be abandoned, when Barnaba degli Agli, 
who had already given some 600 florins to the J^ra^t 
for their building, died, leaving enough money to them 
by will to finish both convent and church. So in spite 
of more disputes the church was finished and called 
S. Barnaba, and the Agli arms were set over the door; 
later, however, in order to carry out to the letter Bar- 
naba' s will, the church was dedicated under the name 
of S. Domenico, as he had wished. Here S. Antonino, 
later Archbishop of Florence, was received into the 
Dominican Order when he was sixteen years old, and 
certainly before the convent was finished, not without 
a severe test of his steadfastness it might seem, for Fra 
Giovanni made him learn the whole of Gratian's decree 
by heart before admitting him. Here too Beato Ange- 
lico, who was to be one of the greatest of all the Floren- 
tine painters, was received in 1408 ; and owing to those 
disputes which followed the death of Barnaba, he was 
early a traveller going with the brethren to Foligno, 
and later to Cortona, only returning to Fiesolein 141 6 
when the Friars had settled the disputes with the heirs 
of Barnaba degli Agli. Suppressed at last in the early 
part of the nineteenth century, the convent was spoiled 
of its frescoes, but in i88o it was bought back by the 
Dominicans, so that to-day, happily, it is fulfilling its 
original purpose as a religious house. But it is not 
altogether a fifteenth century church we see to-day, as 
we enter it from the cloister where Cosimo de' Medici 
walked so often in the evening talking with the Frati. 
The centuries have done their best to honour and to 
spoil S. Domenico. And then there is almost nothing 
left of the work which Fra Angelico did here : a picture 
much repainted in the first chapel of the north aisle — 
a Madonna with our Lord surrounded by many crowds 
of saints, and a spoiled crucifix in the sacristy. Indeed 



46 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the only really lovely thing now in the church is a 
Baptism of Christ by Lorenzo di Credi : a beautiful 
serene picture where our Lord stands in Arno, not far 
from the city, which we may see in the distance under 
Monte Morello, while S. Giovanni, quietly in the dawn, 
pours the water on His forehead, and God blesses Him. 
Of old, Angelico's Coronation of the Virgin hung here, 
and Perugino's Baptism too, now in the Uffizi, but 
that was taken by Grand Duke Leopold who gave in 
exchange Lorenzo di Credi's picture, while the Corona- 
tion was stolen away by the French, and is now one 
of the greatest treasures of the Louvre. 

It is down a lane between garden walls, a lane that 
leaves the Piazza nearly opposite the Church of S. 
Domenico, that you must pass to reach the Badia, 
once the great shrine of the Fiesolani, where S. 
Romolo the holy bishop lay in peace, till a few years 
ago his oratory beside the abbey — you may see the 
place as you pass down to the Piazza to-day — was 
stupidly destroyed. 

The Badia itself, under the invocation of SS. 
Romolo and Bartolommeo, was founded in 1028 
in the place where of old the Duomo of Fiesole 
stood, and according to a tradition, on the site of an 
old fortress near the place, marked to-day by a bridge 
over the Mugnone, where Stilicho, that hero, in 406 
defeated the barbarian Radagaisus. At first a certain 
Azzone, a disciple of S. Romolo, was invited from 
Fonte Avellana to rule the abbey, but we soon find 
the Benedictines of Monte Cassino in command, 
and the place remained in their hands till in 1422 
it passed to the Lateran Canons of the Most Holy 
Saviour under a brief of Eugenius IV., who in that 
year reinstated this most ancient Community of 
Canons Regular in Grottaferrata and the Lateran, 
whence they had been expelled in 1294 by Boniface 




THE BADIA FIESOLANA 



THE BADIA A FIESOLE 47 

VIII. Under them the Badia Fiesolana increased 
in fame, and indeed became perhaps the most splendid 
religious house in Tuscany, especially by reason of 
the favour of Cosimo Pater Patriae, who, besides pre- 
senting the abbey with a fine library, employed 
Brunelleschi to build both a spacious cloister and a new 
church at a cost of some eighty thousand florins. In 
doing this, however, Brunelleschi did not destroy the 
little fa9ade of marble, dating from the same time as 
that of S. Miniato al Monte. Cosimo was a frequent 
visitor at the Badia in those days, for his friend Padre 
Timoteo da Verona was one of the canons, as also 
later was Matteo Bosio of Verona who had the friend- 
ship of Lorenzo and Poliziano ; while others of that 
famous company, Pico della Mirandola, being not 
the least among them, often dwelt there in the 
blessed silence. And then was it not there too 
was established the most famous of Academies, the 
Platonic Academy of Florence ? Later Inghirami set 
up his printing press there, while in the church 
in 1452 Giovanni de' Medici was made cardinal, and 
in the convent Giuliano Due de Nemours died in 
1516. 

The abbey, however, fell on evil days, and was 
suppressed in 1778, its priceless codici being taken to 
the Laurenziana, its books to the Magliabechiana, 
whilst, for itself, it became a villa for the use of the 
Archbishop of Florence. 

To-day there is little enough to see, save the church 
itself, a great nave with a transept under a circular 
vaulting, and there the pupils of Desiderio da Set- 
tignano have worked, and Giovanni di S. Giovanni, that 
bizzare artist, has painted, while Brunelleschi is said to 
have designed the lectern in the sacristy. 

Returning from this quiet and beautiful retreat to 
S. Domenico, we follow on foot, for it is impossible to 



48 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

go in any other way, the old road to Fiesole, still be- 
tween garden walls. And by this way we may tread 
in the footsteps of the Bishop of Fiesole, who leav- 
ing his coach at San Domenico would climb to 
Fiesole in a sledge drawn by oxen, resting at the 
Riposo de' Vescovi, passing the Tre Pulzelle, a famous 
inn which stood there at the corner of the way that 
still bears its name. The bishop too like ourselves 
would turn perhaps to look at the great view of 
Florence within the beautiful circle of her hills ; but 
then he would continue on his way, while we, less 
eager perhaps, after passing under the arch that joins 
two villas (that on the right being Villa Papiniano, 
the home of Baccio Bandinelli whom Cellini hated), 
we turn to the right, coming in about two hundred 
yards to the little, forgotten Oratory of S. Ansano, 
where it is necessary to ring for admittance. 

The Oratory of S. Ansano seems to have been 
founded in the tenth century, and though we know 
scarcely anything of its origin or its history, it is cer- 
tainly not the least interesting of the churches of 
Fiesole. In the thirteenth century the Campagnia 
called della SS. Trinita, composed for the most part of 
Florentines, assembled there ; and indeed the place 
seems to have been scarcely more than a wayside 
chapel, till in 1795 the Canonico Angiolo Maria Ban- 
dini bought it and turned it with a neighbouring 
house into a little museum of pictures and majolica — 
a museum in a chapel — which it remains to this day. 

There are many beautiful things within, but the 
most worthy of our attention are certainly the four 
Trionfi by Jacopo di Sellajo.^ 

The four panels of Sellajo, who had Botticelli for 
master, illustrate four of the Trionfi oi Petrarch. It is 

^ Mr. Berenson has identified these pictures, and very gener- 
ously given me news of them. 




o ^ 

ffi-s 

a- .a 

it 

2 t^ 



S. ANSANO 49 

possible that once there were six of them, but these 
four are now all that remain to us of the work of the 
pupil of a man who we shall do well to remind our- 
selves here spent his old age in illustrating, as it were, 
the Divine Comedy. 

The Trionfi were, as we scarcely need to be re- 
minded, visions that came to the poet in Valclusa 
when, asleep one day, dreaming of Laura, suddenly he 
saw Love Triumphant on a car of fire driven by four 
horses, and surrounded by an innumerable crowd of 
mortals, some prisoners, some wounded, some already 
murdered. He recognised no one, but a shade called 
him by name and both revealed himself to him, and, 
to satisfy his desires, showed him among the rest 
Caesar Augustus, Nero, Marcus Aurelius, Dionysius, 
Alexander, and so forth, together with many heroes 
and the gods of old. Then he found himself speak- 
ing with Massinissa and Sofonisba, and Seleuco spoke 
with him. Then he saw Perseus, Narcissus, Atalanta, 
Acis and Galatea, Carmenta and Pico, and such. And 
his friend showed him beside, Pompey, Cornelia, 
Aegistheus, Clytaemnestra, Piramus and Thisbe, and 
an innumerable crowd of men and women, Lancelot 
and Guinivere, Tristram and Isotta, and the un- 
divided twain of Rimini. Then while he spoke with 
una giovanetta, he saw Orpheus with many other 
poets both ancient and modern, Greek, Latin and 
Italian, and among them his friends Tommaso da 
Messina, Socrate and Lelio. And Love led them 
tutti incatenaii through the woods and mountains to 
that delicate isle and serene, that was once sacred to 
Venus. 

In the Triumph of Chastity Petrarch describes the 
fierce battle fought betwixt Love and Madonna Laura, 
till at last she was victorious, and binding her adversary, 
came with Penelope, Virginia, Judith and the rest to 



50 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Rome, where she offered her spoil in the Tempio della 
Pudicizia. 

The Triumph of Time tells how the Sun, lusting for 
Fame, quickened his course in pursuit of it. While in 
the Triumph of Christ, the poet cries, "Look; in 
whom dost thou trust?" and answers, " In the Lord ". 
And before his eyes the world passed away, and was 
born again more jocund and more beautiful by far, 
and he himself sees the Highest Good and finds hope 
again of being joined to Laura in Heaven. 

In truth there might seem to be but little of all this 
in Sellajo's pictures. He has taken only what suited 
him, and the result, while not so astonishing and dis- 
turbing as those plates his master made for the Inferno, 
is yet full of a delicate loveliness, half real, half dream- 
like, that is in itself a vision. But who are those 
three bound figures on Love's car that crouch under 
the flying footsteps of Love Triumphant? Who is 
she who, so coldly almost, watches Love bound by her 
maidens on the road to Rome ? 

Other treasures too the church possesses, terra-cottas 
of the della Robbia, but not the work of Luca or of 
Giovanni : school work, then, but so fine that only the 
fifteenth century could have produced it ; and to that 
fortunate age too must be given the Madonna attributed 
to Donatello, the picture said to be by Ghirlandajo. 

Coming out of that little church again, into the sun- 
shine and the world, we climb the steep and narrow 
way before the doorway uphill to the platform among 
the cypresses. How fair Florence seems from there, 
almost a fifteenth century city, and then — that villa 
just above us and behind — what can it be but Villa 
Medici ? Up at Fiesole, so we have heard, Botticelli 
first saw Madonna Simonetta, in a garden of cypresses 
among the olives, while Lorenzo de' Medici spoke 



VILLA MEDICI 51 

with Pico della Mirandola of the Love of Plato, and 
wrote songs too, and Giuliano at his feet listened, 
looking the while over the city. Well, this is the very 
place. 

Michelozzo built the villa for Giovanni, son of 
Cosimo de' Medici : "a magnificent and noble palace 
at Fiesole," Vasari calls it, adding that " the founda- 
tions of the lower part on the steep slope of the hill 
cost an enormous sum, but it was not thrown away, 
as there he made vaults, cellars, stables, places for the 
making of wine and oil, and other good and com- 
modious habitations ; and above them, beside the 
bed-chambers, drawing-rooms, and other apartments, 
he arranged rooms for books and for music. In short, 
Michelozzo showed there how valiant an architect he 
was, for it was so well built that although high up on 
that hill, no crack ever showed itself in the foundations." 
It was here that Sixtus IV. with his fellow-murderers 
hoped to kill both Lorenzo and Giuliano. "They 
thought their design might be effected when Lorenzo 
and Giuliano went to dine at the villa of the former 
at Fiesole," says Mecatti, " but this came to nought 
because Giuliano did not come ; then they determined 
to do the deed in the Medici house, for they made 
sure that when the archbishop came to Florence to 
attend High Mass, Lorenzo, according to his custom, 
would invite him to dinner ". It was, however, as we 
know, in the Duomo itself, that the attempt was made 
at last, with partial success, Giuliano falling beneath 
the dagger of the priest who communicated him. 

The Villa Medici at Fiesole, however, has for us 
other memories than the blasphemy and murder of 
Pope Sixtus IV. Something of this remembrance may 
be caught perhaps from that letter which Poliziano, re- 
turned from Madonna Clarice at Cafaggiuolo, sent to 
Marsilio Ficino, who was living at Careggi. " When 



52 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

your retreat at Careggi grows too hot in the month of 
August, I am hoping you may think this our rustic 
dwelling at Fiesole not beneath your notice. We 
have plenty of water here, and but little sun, for we 
are in a valley, and are never without a cool breeze. 
The villa itself, lying away from the road, almost hidden 
in a wood, yet commands a view of the whole of Flor- 
ence ; and although the district is densely populated, 
I have perfect solitude such as is loved by those who 
leave the town. I have a double attraction to offer 
you, for Pico comes very often from his oak wood to 
see me, stealing in unexpectedly and dragging me out 
of my den to share his supper, which as you know is 
frugal, yet well served and sufficient, and seasoned 
with most pleasant talk and jests. But come to me, 
you shall not sup worse, and perchance you shall 
drink better, for the palm of good wine I am ready 
to contend even with Pico himself." ^ 

And so, following the road to the right, you come 
into the great Piazza, littered with the booths of the 
straw-plaiters, in the keen air of Fiesole, among a rude 
and virile people, who look down on Florence all day 
long. 

" Not more than two miles distant from Florence," 
says Varchi, the old historian, " shines Fiesole, once a 
city, now a fruitful hill ; and yet she is a city still . . . 
because she always had, and still has her bishop. . . . 
Of a truth the position on this charming hill is so 
pleasant and delightful, that the fable about its having 
been built by Atlantas under a constellation which 

^Poliziano, Ep., lib. Ix., ep. 14. For a fuller account of 
Villa Medici and for very many of the famous villas about 
Florence, see Janet Ross, Florentine Villas (Dent, 1904). It 
was in Villa Medici that, as Mrs. Ross reminds me, Poliziano 
wrote his famous (alas, no longer famous but forgotten) Latin 
poem Rusficus. 



FIESOLE 53 

bestows peace of mind, repose of body, and piety of 
heart, seems to be true." And indeed whether Atlas 
with Electra his wife born in the fifth degree from 
Japhet, son of Noah, built the city upon this rock, by 
the counsel, as is said, of Apollinus, midway between 
the sea of Pisa and Rome and the Gulf of Venice, 
matters little : maybe these are but the tales of the old 
woman that Dante speaks of — 

Dei Troiani, di Fiesole e di Roma. 

Nevertheless the Fiesolani are not Florentines, people 
of the valley, but Etruscans, people of the hills, 
and that you may see in half an hour any day in their 
windy Piazzas and narrow, climbing ways. They have 
not the urbanity of the Florentine, who while he scorns 
you in his soul as a barbarian, will trade with you, 
eat with you, and humour you, certainly without be- 
traying his contempt. But the Fiesolano is otherwise. 
He is quarrelsome and a little aloof, he will not concern 
himself overmuch about you, but will do his business 
whether you come or go. And I think truly he still 
hates the Florentine as the Pisan does, as the Sienese 
does, with an immortal, cold, everlasting hatred, that 
maybe nothing will altogether wipe out, or cause him 
to forget. All these people have suffered too much 
from Florence, who in her stupid cunning understood 
the art of victory as little as she understood the art of 
Empire. 

From the earliest times, as it might seem, Florence, 
a Roman foundation after all, hated Fiesole which once 
certainly was an Etruscan city. Time after time she 
destroyed it, generally in self-defence. In loio, for 
instance, Villani tells us: "The Florentines per- 
ceiving that their city of Florence had no power to 
rise much while they had overhead so strong a fortress 
as the city of Fiesole, one night secretly and subtly 



54 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

set an ambush of armed men in divers parts of 
Fiesole. The Fiesolani, feeling secure as to the 
Florentines, and not being on their guard against them, 
on the morning of their chief festival of S. Romolo, 
when the gates were open and the Fiesolani unarmed, 
the Florentines entered into the city under cover of 
coming to the festa ; and when a good number were 
within, the other armed Florentines which were in 
ambush secured the gates; and on a signal made to 
Florence, as had been arranged, all the host and friends 
of the Florentines came on horse and on foot to the 
hill, and entered into the city of Fiesole, and traversed 
it, slaying scarce any man nor doing any harm, save 
to those who opposed them. And when the Fieso- 
lani saw themselves to be suddenly and unexpectedly 
surprised by the Florentines, part of them which were 
able fled to the fortress, which was very strong, and 
long time maintained themselves there. The city at 
the foot of the fortress having been taken and over- 
run by the Florentines, and the strongholds and they 
which opposed themselves being likewise taken, the 
common people surrendered themselves on condition 
that they should not be slain nor robbed of their goods ; 
the Florentines working their will to destroy the city, 
and keeping possession of the bishop's palace. Then 
the Florentines made a covenant, that whosoever 
desired to leave the city of Fiesole and come and 
dwell in Florence might come safe and sound with all 
his goods and possessions, or might go to any place 
which pleased him, for the which thing they came down 
in great numbers to dwell in Florence, whereof there 
were and are great families in Florence. And when 
this was done, and the city was without inhabitants 
and goods, the Florentines caused it to be pulled 
down and destroyed, all save the bishop's palace and 
certain other churches and the fortress, which still 




ETRUSCAN WALLS, FIESOLE 



FIESOLE 55 

held out, and did not surrender under the said con- 
ditions." 

A hundred and fifteen years later we read again : 
"In the year of Christ 1125 the Florentines came with 
an army to the fortress of Fiesole, which was still stand- 
ing and very strong, and it was held by certain gentle- 
men, Cattani, which had been of the city of Fiesole, and 
thither resorted highwaymen and refugees and evil men, 
which sometimes infested the roads and country of 
Florence ; and the Florentines carried on the siege so 
long that for lack of victuals the fortress surrendered, 
albeit they would never have taken it. by storm, and 
they caused it to be all cast down and destroyed to the 
foundations, and they made a decree that none should 
ever dare to build a fortress again at Fiesole "} 

Now whether Villani is strictly right in his chronicle 
matters little or nothing. We know that Fiesole was 
an Etruscan city, that with the rise of Rome, like the 
rest, she became a Roman colony ; all this too her 
ruins confirm. With the fall of Rome and the bar- 
barian invasions, she was perfectly suited to the needs 
of the Teutonic invader. What hatred Florence had 
for her was probably due to the fact that she was a 
stronghold of the barbarian nobles ; and the fact that 
in 10 10, as Villani says, the Fiesolani were content to 
leave the city and descend to Florence, while the 
citadel held out and had to be dealt with later, goes to 
prove that the fight was rather between the Latin 
Commune of Florence and the pirate nobles of Fie- 
sole, than between Florence and Fiesole itself. Cer- 
tainly with the destruction of the alien power at 
Fiesole the city of Florence gained every immediate 

^Villani, Cronaca, lib. iv., trans, by R. E. Selfe (Constable, 
1906), pp. 71-73 and 93. The fortress stood where now rises 
the Church of S, Francesco, 



56 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

security ; the last great fortress in her neighbourhood 
was destroyed. 

To-day Fiesole consists of a great piazza in which 
a campanile towers between two hills covered with 
houses and churches and a host of narrow lanes. In 
the Piazza stands the Duomo founded in loio by 
Bishop Jacopo Bavaro, who brought his throne 
readily enough up the hill from the ancient church on 
the site of the Badia, where of old it was established. 
The Campanile dates from 12 13, and like the church 
it is built of squared stones without carving of any sort 
within or without. Restored though it is,^ it keeps 
still something of its old severity and beauty, standing 
there like a fortress between the hills and between the 
valleys. It is of basilica form, with a nave and aisles 
flanked by sixteen columns of sandstone. As at S. 
Miniato the choir is raised over a lofty crypt. There 
is not perhaps to-day much of interest in the church, 
but over the west door you may see a statue of S. 
Romolo by Giovanni della Robbia himself, made in 
15 2 1, and brought here from the bishop's palace ;2 
while in the choir, in the Salutati chapel there, is the 
masterpiece of Mino da Fiesole, the tomb of Bishop 
Leonardo Salutati, who died in 1465, and opposite 
is a marble reredos with Madonna between S. 
Romolo and S. Leonardo, by the same master. The 
beautiful bust on the tomb is an early work of 
Mino's, and the tomb itself, as I have said, is certainly 
among the most original and charming works of 
that master. If the reredos does not appear to be 
so fine, it is perhaps only that with so splendid a 

^ It was restored in 1863 as a national monument. 

2 It is inscribed "s c s romulus ep fesulanus ; above 
one reads, tempore rd epi fesulani gulielmi de folchis 
ANNO DOMINI MDXXi ; above again is the stemma. 



THE DUOMO, FIESOLE 57 

work before us we are content only with the best of 
all. 

The retablo over the high altar is by Andrea Fer- 
rucci. A flight of steps leads down to the crypt under 
the choir, which is supported by beautiful antique 
columns. Here is the tomb of S. Romolo. 

As you come out of the Duomo on your right is the 
Canonica founded in 1032, and restored in 1439, with 
the addition of a portico, a charming piece of work of 
the fifteenth century. In the cloister you may find 
similar columns to those which to-day stand in the 
Scavi. 

Opposite the cathedral is the Episcopal palace 
which Jacopo Bavaro built. This has been so often 
restored that little or nothing remains of the original 
building. In the very ancient oratory annexed to it, 
Oratorio di S. Jacopo Maggiore, is a picture of the 
Coronation of the Virgin, a beautiful work of the early 
fifteenth century, possibly by a pupil of Orcagna. 
Here in the Middle Age the bishop ruled as feudal 
signor, not only over Fiesole, but in many a village 
and territory round about. In 1228 Bishop Ilde- 
brando got possession even of the Church of S. 
Maria in Campo in Florence, and built there a resi- 
dence for himself and his successors. 

All these buildings at Fiesole are for the most part 
composed of ancient stones and pillars found in the 
Roman town, but the great Seminario in Via S. 
Francesco close by is a building of the seventeenth 
century, the only thing of any interest there being the 
relief of Giovanni della Robbia over the high altar, a 
Madonna and saints carved in 1520, which like that in 
the Duomo comes from the Palazzo Vescovile.^ 

^It is inscribed gvillelmvs de folchis fesvl fieri fecit 

ANNO DOMINI MDXX. 



58 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

On the eastern side of the Piazza is the ancient, 
but, alas, quite modernised church or rather oratorio 
of S. Maria Primerana. It was so called from an 
image of Madonna in the Byzantine style. The 
oratory was certainly in existence in the year 966 
when Bishop Zanobi gave it and its belongings to the 
canons of the Duomo. In the fifteenth century the 
church both within and without seems to have been 
covered with frescoes. Later all these were covered 
with whitewash, and to-day only one is left to us 
lately uncovered, a Presentation in the Temple. The 
most beautiful work of art left to us here, however, is 
a Crucifixion by one of the della Robbia, a pupil of 
Andrea's perhaps, and though there are one or two 
interesting pictures in the church it is to this only 
we shall return. Wandering there we may remind 
ourselves that it was in this church, in homage as it 
were to the ancient lordship of the bishop in the 
city which we find expressed in a Bull of Pope Pas- 
quale II. in 1103, that every new Potesta swore 
davanti al Propasto to observe Justice. While here 
too every year on the Monday in Easter week the 
canons chose among t\\Q fcuniglie possidente of Fiesole 
the new gonfaloniere who succeeded on the second 
Sunday in May.^ 

Close to S. Maria Primerana is the Palazzo Pretorio 
bearing the arms of the Potesta from 1520 to 1808. 
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the 
municipal statutes dating from 145 1 were kept here. 
Founded about 1300, but rebuilt in the fifteenth 
century, it is now a communal school, and a museum 
of Etruscan antiquities. Surely this is as strange 
a fate as that which has befallen the ancient theatre 
and the Roman baths and such, which are now really 

^ Cf, A. Guerri, Fiesole e il suo Comtim (Firenze, Fran- 
gini), p. 56. 




ROMAN BATHS AT FIESOLE 



S. FRANCESCO, FIESOLE 59 

a pleasure garden covered with flowers. And indeed 
it is scarcely to see the excavations that one goes to 
that quiet place to-day, but rather for the beauty of 
the view far away over the Val di Mugnone to Prato- 
lino and Monte Senario. 

It is for the same reason I always climb the steep 
hill westward out of the Piazza up to S. Francesco, 
where of old the Rocca stood, though some pupil of 
Piero di Cosimo has painted there a rare and curious 
picture, a Conception of the Madonna. Nor is this 
the only wonder of the place, for over the high altar 
Filippino Lippi or one of his pupils has painted the 
Annunciation, while over the first altar on the south 
is a Marriage of S. Catherine, and over the second a 
Crucifixion painted on a gold ground with S. Francis 
at the foot of the Cross by Neri di Bicci. Opposite 
this, is a picture of Madonna and Child between S. 
Michael and S. Sebastian, of the school of Ghirlandajo, 
and over the last altar on the north side, beyond the 
door, The Adoration of the Kings in Val d'Arno. 

Beneath the church a little oratory of S. Bernardino 
has just been laid bare ; the humble little chapel is 
touching in its simplicity. 

But after all, it is not chiefly to see churches that 
we have wandered up to Fiesole, for, in the country 
at any rate, be they never so fine and fair, they are 
much less than the olive gardens, while all the pictures 
are shamed by the flowers that run over the hills. 
And here from S. Francesco you may see all Tuscany 
spread out before you, from the Apennines to Mont' 
Amiata ; you may watch the clouds on the mountains, 
the sun in the valleys, the shadows on the hills. 
Standing there by S. Alessandro, for instance, that 
spoiled church with its beautiful antique columns, at 
any hour of the day, you are caught by a certain 
meaning and passion in this landscape, so Latin, so 



6o COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

profoundly expressive beyond anything to be found in 
the north. The dawn comes up always with a cer- 
tain tragedy over Monte Senario, and the day dies of 
its own beauty every night behind the hills of Carrara, 
that from here in their almost visionary beauty seem 
made of some precious and half-transparent stone — 
moonstone or amethyst — ah, I know not how to name 
it. And what in the world beside is half so fair, half 
so beautiful, >as those Tuscan cypresses on the edge of 
that grove of olives ? 

Such thoughts certainly are not slow to come while 
you dream away a summer afternoon on the terrace of 
Albergo Aurora, with the Flower-town at your feet. 
But the road calls already, the splendour of the day 
is past, in the cool of the afternoon you set out, 
leaving the great Piazza del Duomo for the smaller 
Piazza di Mino da Fiesole, passing thence uphill 
through the straggling suburb of the city by Via Fer- 
rucci, till at the top you come upon a great shrine 
where Ridolfo Ghirlandajo or his pupils have painted 
very sweetly Madonna of the wayside, with Bambino 
Gesti on her knee. Just beyond you come again 
among the olive gardens, and looking over their 
tossing silver see the great valley of the Mugnone below 
you, and far away at the head of it Monte Senario 
towering into the sky, Monte Senario where / Servi 
di Mariuy that order originally founded by seven 
Florentines of the Laudesi, finding the little house 
they had built where now S. Croce stands, too near 
the city, set out over the hills, founding this convent 
on Monte Senario. Sometimes when the tramoniana 
blows, even from so far away at sunset, you may hear 
those bells, marvellously sweet in the evening over 
the valley. Then as you pass on your way round 
Monte Ceceri thinking of this, or the beautiful gesture 
of the hills beyond Pratolino, suddenly an immense 



CASTEL DI POGGIO 6i 

view to the southward opens before you, stretching 
far and far away over the Chianti to the hills of Siena ; 
and once on a fortunate day I seemed to see Mont' 
Amiata there on the verge of the Patrimony, and 
often Volterra, that high, fierce place, the only really 
Etruscan stronghold left in the world, where it might 
seem they speak still as it were their own language, 
and whence the gods have not altogether fled away. 
In the foreground among the cypresses, on its solitary 
hill stands Castel di Poggio for which we are making, 
and far away below almost lost in the trees, the Castle 
of Vincigliata by which we must pass. Perhaps you 
will rest here a little in this high place between the 
valleys, that you may never forget so fair a view. 
Both north and south the hill falls away from you 
covered with cypresses, and there you spy smiling 
among the trees, a quiet villa, here a village, there a 
little town. In the vineyard some one is singing as he 
sprinkles the grapes, the olives seem to be listening to 
the whispering of the corn, and yet there is so great a 
silence that you may hear the quiet eternal voices of 
the earth. 

Then when you come to a turning out of the way 
on the right, you follow Via Giovanni Leader through 
the woods, and ever as you go Castel di Poggio towers 
above you over the valley, till suddenly you come 
upon it, a beautiful fragment of a ruined fortress, 
looking from its hill-top into the valley of Florence, 
into the valley of Ontignano, guarding the road 
to Arezzo and Rome, as well as the way into the 
Marche. 

Castel di Poggio is almost the only ancient castle 
left of all those which once stood round about the 
city before the Commune was strong enough to break 
the Signorotti of the hills, who, ruling like brigands, 
took an easy toll of all who passed by. There it was 



62 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the Manzecca who lorded it as they would, infesting 
the woods of both valleys, while below at Vincigliata, 
it was first the Visdomini, and later the Usimbardi, 
who held sway, the latter certainly fierce enemies of 
the lords of Castel di Poggio. 

The first notice I can find of the del Manzecca is 
unfortunately late and trivial enough. As bad church- 
men it might seem as they were men, in the first 
years of the trecento Manzecca di Francesco del 
Manzecca with a friend of his, was summoned before 
the E senior e for having eaten meat in Lent. Their 
crimes, however, were certainly more serious than 
this, for in August, 1348, even in the midst of the 
plague that Boccaccio describes so well, the Com- 
mune decreed the destruction of the castle on the 
hill, which was done by Giusto di Bertolo, Francesco 
di Berto and Niccolo di Pagno, magistrates of Set- 
tignano, on the 12th August, eighty-six florins being 
paid for the work. Villani speaks of the son of 
Francesco del Manzecca, probably the very one who 
was fined for breaking the quarresima as ^' orrevoie 
cittadino di For S. Piero ". He took part in the 
rising against the Duke of Athens, and sold his share 
of Castel di Poggio to Leonardo Strozzi. But the 
place soon after came into the possession of the Ales- 
sandri, who rebuilt it "//« sontuoso" and presently 
secured all the country round about, including Vin- 
cigliata. In 1469 we find them building the little 
oratorio which to-day stands below the castle, and 
which once held a precious work of the della Robbia. 
The Alessandri seem to have held Castel di Poggio 
till the seventeenth century when it passed to the 
Buonaccorsi. Thus it was not till the beginning of 
the nineteenth century that the Forteguerri of Pistoja, 
whose arms are on the tower over the porch, came 
into possession of it. During the eighteenth century 



A ROMANCE AT VINCIGLIATA 63 

for the most part, no one lived there, and we read in 
the Stato dell Anime ^ during a long series of years, 
** Villa di Casiel di Foggio ; nonvi abita nessuno,'' 
and then this note by the priest under the year 1764, 
" Si da tacqua sania, e per due anni i I Fat lore non Hia 
valuta ed io non ci vado ". Whether Giovanni Acuto, 
the English condottiere, who is buried in the Duomo 
of Florence, sacked the place as it is said, in 1364, 
when he beat the Florentines on behalf of murdered 
Pisa, we know not.^ We know indeed almost nothing 
of the early history of Castel di Poggio, yet happily 
one story at least has come down to us which, whether 
false or true, and indeed it may well be true enough, 
is worth the telling. 

It is the old story over again of Romeo and Juliet. 
For it seems that in the year 1327 or thereabout, 
Selvaggia, the daughter of Giovanni Usimbardi, Lord 

1 See Anonimo (Giovanni Baroni), II Castello di Vincigliata 
e i suoi contorni (Firenze, Tip. del Vocabolario, 1871), p. 55 et 
seq. The exact and specific reasons for the destruction we 
shall never know, since owing to the plague the Signoria kept 
insufficient chronicles for that year. The following note of its 
destruction, and the payment made for it, is taken from the 
Libro d'Uscita del Comutie, July and August, 1348. See op. 
cit. sup., Documento VIII, " Die duodecimo mensis augusti. 
Justo Bartoli, Francisci Berti et Niccholaio Pagni de Septig- 
nano magistris qui destruerunt et destrui fecerunt Castrum de 
Podio, filiorum Francisci del Manzecha, pro eorum et tamquam 
eorum salario et pro cibo et potu dato famulis Domini Capitanei 
et pluribus aliis personis qui interfuerunt et consilium, auxilium 
et favorem dederunt in destruttione et pro destruttione castri 
predicti, rigore stantiamenti super hoc editi per Dominos 
Priores et Vexilliferum justitie et Officium XII. bonorum 
virorum, et Gonfalonerios sotietatum populi florentini de mense 
jiuli proximi preteriti et apodixae Dominorum Priorum et Vex- 
illiferi, in summa librarum Ducentas nonaginta octo et solidos 
octo florenorum largorum. In florenos auri Ixxxxvi. ut supra 
computatos." 

-"Cronaca Sanese," in Muratori, xv., 177, and my Florence 
and Northern Tvscany (Methuen, 1907), p. gg. 



64 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of the Castle of Vincigliata, fell in love with Simon e 
del Manzecca of Castel di Poggio, the hereditary foe 
of all her race. She had seen him, the story says, in 
the little church just without the castle walls, soon 
after she had come to Vincigliata, for her childhood 
had been spent in Florence, where as it seems she 
had been seen and admired by Simone's elder brother 
— who knows — possibly that Manzecca who was so 
bad a churchman. Certainly his deeds were vile 
enough if the story is true. For as soon as he 
learned, and he had ways of learning, of the mutual 
love between Selvaggia and Simone, he tried to 
murder Giovanni Usimbardi, who had already refused 
to give him his daughter, and failing in this, sought to 
kill his brother also, lest he should prove more suc- 
cessful than himself. The lovers, in spite of the danger 
that hemmed them in, used to meet at a certain 
window in the walls, until one day Giovanni Usim- 
bardi found them thus, and sent the youth about his 
business ; who " vowed he would win the maid in 
spite of all ". Now it seems that at this time Florence 
was struggling with that Alexander of Lucca, Cas- 
truccio Castracani, who was in the field with all his 
troops against the City of the Lily. Never a fighting 
people, the Florentines were glad enough to use the 
unruly Signorotti of the contado for their ends, and 
so Giovanni Usimbardi was hired or forced— not un- 
willingly on his part, we may be sure — to take the 
field. And ever before him in the place of danger 
rode an unknown knight with no device at all, save 
that in his helm he wore a strip of sky-blue ribbon ; 
and though he saved Usimbardi's life not once nor 
twice, he kept his visor down. Now, when Castruccio 
had had enough, these two, old Usimbardi and that 
unknown knight, found themselves on the same way 
homeward, and suddenly at a turning of the way, 



VINCIGLIATA 65 

under the walls of Vincigliata, the knight declared 
himself, throwing his visor up, to be Simone del 
Manzecca. So Giovanni embraced him, and promised 
him that which he had rather possess than any throne 
in the world. So the tale goes ; and Selvaggia watched 
it all at her window in the walls. But it was not to 
be. On the very eve of the wedding, as Selvaggia 
looked for Simone riding down through the woods 
from Castel di Poggio, where the road turns beyond 
the church, she saw three men leap out on him, strik- 
ing him from his horse, and killing him under her 
eyes : Manzecca di Francesco di Manzecca had kept 
his vow. And Selvaggia, mad from that hour, shortly 
fled away also. Yet even to-day, the country folk tell 
you her spirit still haunts the precincts of the castle, 
and on a winter night when the north wind howls 
among the lashing cypresses, she may be seen, a girl 
as white as snow, watching at her window in the walls 
for the coming of her lover from the hills. 

Something more historical, if less valuable than a 
romantic story, remains to us concerning Vincigliata. 
Following the road from Castel di Poggio, keeping to 
the right where it divides, and then (not without mark- 
ing well the beautiful view towards Vallombrosa, over 
which some magic light from Umbria, just beyond, 
seems always to have fallen) winding ever downwards 
through the woods, you come first to the little church 
of S. Maria e S. Lorenzo ^ beside the way. A founda- 

^Till 1672 the church was dedicated* to S. Maria, but by a 
decree of Monsignor della Robbia, Bishop of Fiesole, on the 
28th July of that year the church was placed under the pro- 
tection of S. Lorenzo also. There is a story that Francesco 
degli Alessandri, Lord of Vincigliata, being very fond of hunt- 
ing, was often late for Mass, The priest was used to wait 
for hinri, till one morning, losing patience, he began the service. 
A little later Francesco entered, and finding the Celebration 
already begun, fired his gun at the Padre in sudden anger, 
and killed him. See Baroni, op. cit., p. 48. 
5 



66 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

tion of the twelfth century, it was always in the posses- 
sion of the neighbouring castle, and indeed owes its 
restoration, not always discreet, to the Alessandri, for 
centuries lords of that place. Yet in spite of rebuild- 
ing, the tower is still a fine relic of the earlier times, 
and within is one of the most astonishing beauties 
of the Florentine country-side, a Madonna and Child 
by Giovanni del Biondo.^ The picture, now but a frag- 
ment of a large altar-piece, is set in a modern canvas, 
where on one side is S. Domenico, and on the other 
S. Francesco, on their knees in adoration. Madonna 
is enthroned with the Divine Child standing on her 
knees, holding in His hand a little black bird with a 
red breast. She wears a marvellously lovely sky-blue 
mantle over a rosy tunic, while the Bambino is caught 
about the loins with a rainbow-coloured scarf. Over 
the throne is spread a patterned tapestry of blue and 
rose and gold. Giovanni del Biondo is a rare master 

^ I owe the attribution of this picture, and indeed my know- 
ledge of its existence, to the kindness of Mr. F, Mason Perkins, 
whose careful work all who care for Italian painting are always 
so glad to find in the Rassegna d^Arte. I believe the picture 
has, as yet, been described by no one. I have found some 
details concerning it which may be of interest. The In- 
ventario of Masselli of 1678 says that on the right of the 
high altar there was "una tavola antica bistonda, tocca d'oro, 
con suo grado entrovi piia figure di Santi e nel mezzo una 
Madonna coperta con cielo e mantellino". The Inventario of 
Campani of 1682 thus describes it: "una Tavola antica dove e 
dipinta la Madonna nel mezzo, S. Niccola e S. Lorenzo alia 
destra, S. Bartolommeb e S. Alessandro vescovo alia sinistra". 
The picture it seems, was sawn to pieces and the four saints 
were placed next " the arch of the choir". Boni in his Inven- 
tario of 1816 thus describes it : " una Madonna dipinta sopra il 
legno, posta come in un quadretto bislungo nel mezzo, alquanto 
piia indietro, e nel restante della tavola piia infuori, vi sono effi- 
giati S. Domenico e S. Francesco in atto di adorare detta 
imagine e questi depinta in tela". See also Baroni, op. cit., 
p. 53. 



S. MARIA A VINCIGLIATA 67 

only lately brought to light. He was born in Val 
d'Arno, and later became a citizen of Siena, whose art 
he seems to have loved better far than that of Florence. 
You may see more of his work in the gallery of Siena 
and in the Accademia of Florence. 

There is but little else of interest in the church ; a 
fine lavabo with the arms of the Alessandri in the 
Sacristy, and there too beside the door, an over-painted 
work, by some Florentine painter in a glass case. 
Madonna del Rosario, with S. Giovanni Battista and 
S. Antonio.i 

This little church stands almost within the shadow 
of the Castle of Vincigliata. Called of old La Torre, 
Careggi, or La Castellaccia, it is only in our own time 
that it has borne the name of the village which stands 
above it on the hill. The first notice we have of it is 
from a document in the Badia Fiorentina referring to 
a sale on 29th August, 1031, of certain rights in the 
Church of S. Martino in Florence, held by four 
brothers, sons of Sichelmo, to Tregrimo, the son of 
Giovanni, a subdeacon.^ 

These four brothers, Pietro, Giovanni, Rambaldo 
and Manfredo, belonged to the great Visdomini clan, 
and at that time were in possession of Vincigliata. 
The Visdomini had been since the ninth century the 
legal administrators of the income of the Bishopric of 
Florence whenever the see was vacant. It is of them 
doubtless that Dante speaks : — 



^In an Inventario of 1750 {cf. Baroni, op. cit., p. 52) this 
ruined work is thus described: " Un quadro bislungo tinto 
color cupo, scorniciato in oro, ove awi effigiata una SS. Ver- 
gine in tavola con cristallo davanti, rappresenta la Madonna 
del Rosario con S. Giovanni B. e S. Antonio". 

^ For all that concerns Vincigliata, see Leader Scott, Vin- 
cigliata and Maiano (Barbara, i8gi). 



68 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Cosi facean li padri di colore 

Che, sempre che la vostra Chiesa vaca 

Si fanno grossi stando a consistoro. 

— Paradiso, xvi., Ii2. 
" Such the sires of those, who now, 
As surely as your church is vacant flock 
Into her consistory, and at leisure. 
There stall them, and grow fat."i 

They were with the Tosinghi known as the Padroni e 
difenditori del vescovado. Of very ancient stock, for 
we find a certain Buonaccorso Visdomini knighted by 
Charlemagne in 802, while another Cerrettiero fought 
under the Emperor Henry I. in 1002, they not only 
claimed the tithes of S. Martino in Florence, but 
founded the church which still bears their name, S. 
Michele Visdomini, in that city. They were always 
great Guelfs, and after the disaster of Montaperto, 
they fled the city, but they returned, for we hear of 
one of them as a favourite counsellor of the Duke of 
Athens, which may have caused the Manzecca of Castel 
di Poggio to head the conspiracy against that tyrant, in 
1343. But so far as Vincigliata is concerned, we hear 
no more of the Visdomini. And it is not till in 1318 
when the Scarlatti, who seem by then to have got pos- 
session of it, ceded their right to Giovanni di Bartolo 
Usimbardi that we hear of it again. The Usimbardi, 
however, well known as they were in Florence, seem 
early to have migrated to Colle, where till the sixteenth 
century they had a distinguished career.^ 

Indeed the days of the Signorotti were over. In 
1335 Vincigliata was sold to Paolo the judge, son of 
Decco di Ceffino da Figline, for 4,060 gold florins, but 

^Gary's translation; see' also G. Villani, Cronica, iv., 10. 

2 Francesco Usimbardi was then the father of Usimbardo, 
Bishop of Colle, Pietro, Bishop of Arezzo, and Lorenzo, secre- 
tary to the Grand Duke Ferdinando I. Cf. Leader Scott, op. 
cit., p. 9= 



VINCIGLIATA 69 

he did not hold it, selling it later to the Buonaccorsi 
family, the bankers, rich enough one may think there- 
fore to possess a useless stronghold such as this had 
come to be. However they too fell with the Petrucci 
and the Bardi, when Edward III. of England could 
not pay his debts after the victories of Crecy and 
Poitiers; and then in 1345 came the general ruin. 
To pay their creditors the Buonaccorsi sold Vincigliata 
in that disastrous year to Niccolo di Ugo degli Albizzi. 
Then followed the plague, and Sir John Hawkwood, 
who is said to have utterly destroyed the place, and 
certainly about 1367 the Albizzi, Alessandri now, re- 
built it, for in the wars Vincigliata had come again to 
have its uses. But the end was near. When the mad 
quarrels of Neri and Bianchi were hushed Vincigliata 
became rather a villa than a castle, and the change is 
marked for us very happily in two descriptions some 
eighty years asunder. In 1345 when Niccolo degli 
Albizzi bought it, La Torre is described as " Turris 
cum doniihus bass is, curia, logiis, giardinis et perguHs,'' 
while in 1427 in another deed we read of it as ''' un 
palagio da Signore merlato chon volte sotterra, antimura 
et pollaio, orto e vigna interna la quale lavoriamo a 
nostre ma7ii'' } It was to this palace, now a mere 
pleasure house, that Niccolo, son of Bartolommeo 
degli Alessandri, brought his bride, Agnoletta Ricasoli, 
in 138 1. Through two splendid centuries the Ales- 
sandri lived there — it was their country-house ; in the 
seventeenth century it was already a little neglected, 
and by 1751 the place was quite deserted, so that in 
the Stato delle Anime conserved in the archives of the 
little church we read under that year : " Al Palazzo 

^ "A tower with a few dwelling-houses, offices, loggia, and 
pergolas "...*' a palace with battlements and vaults, an outer 
wall enclosing fowl-houses, orchard and vineyard, within the 
precincts ". Cf. Baroni, op. cit., p. 15. 



70 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

rovinato del Signori Alessandri non ci abita nessuno ; 
e si da tacqna santa ". This is repeated for a long 
series of years. As at Castel di Poggio, no one lived 
there, but one sprinkled it with Holy Water. 

The Castelaccio, as it was then called, was a ruin. 
In 1766 we read : " Vi7/a del Palazzaccio rovmato dei 
Signori Alessandri non ci abita nessuno e si da I'acqua 
santa e i contadini tengono la chiave" . But it cannot 
have been utterly uninhabitable, for in 1769 as in 1758 
" qualche volta r abita una stanza il Sig. Gaetano Ales- 
sandri quando viene per suoi bisogni ". At last in 1827 
Signor Gaetano Alessandri sold the place to Lorenzo 
di Bartolommeo Galli of Rovezzano, and in 1855 Baron 
Alfred von Reumont on a visit to Settignano, thus de- 
scribes it : " From Settignano I ascended to these ruins 
marked out by a double circle of walls, of which the 
outer and larger circle had in many places disappeared. 
I entered by the only gate left into the court, which 
brought me to a ground-floor with a half-ruined vaulted 
roof above which the quadrangular walls threatened to 
fall. The remains of the stairs and loggia, the frag- 
ments of battlements and cornices are buried under a 
heap of fallen masonry and stones, overgrown with 
thorns, nettles, and creeping plants." ^ 

It was in 1855 that Temple Leader bought the place, 
and, determined to restore it, trained an architect, 
Giuseppe Fancelli of San Martino a Mensola, to do the 
work. Then rose the somewhat fantastic castle we see 
to-day. There is but little of interest in the place, 
almost all the works of art are copies, like the castle 
itself, and it is thus only a few terra-cottas by the della 
Robbia school that call for our attention : a Pieta 
with two penitents from the Ritiro Capponi in Florence 

1 Anonimo (Baron Alfred von Reumont), Maiano, Vincigliafa, 
Settignano, trans, by Alessandri Papini (Firenze, Barbera, 1876), 
pp. 32-33- 



VINCIGLIATA 71 

for instance, two angels in the dining-hall, bearing 
candelabra, a Madonna with S. Francesco and S. 
Chiara, much restored from the Pia Casa di Lavoro ; 
two small predella scenes, a Pieta and a Nativity, and 
a small Tabernacle, all in the upper Cortile ; in the 
chapel a Christ, an Annunciation from the Pia Casa, 
and a Madonna in a niche from the Palazzo Corsi. 
All the other so-called della Robbia there are imita- 
tions by Ginori.i It is not such things that will call 
us out of the woods — that forest of cypress through 
which the road winds down to Ponte a Mensola. 
Lingering there where so often the nightingales sing, 
slowly, slowly, we make our way into the valley, and 
so to Florence in the twilight. 

^Maud Cruttwell, Luca and Andrea della Robbia, and their 
successors (Dent, 1902), p. 343. 



IV 



PONTE ALLE MOSSE, PERETOLA, PETRI- 
OLO, CAMPI, AND BROZZI 

"^T^HE way to Campi beside Bisenzio, Strada Pistoiese, 
J- leaves the city by the Porta al Prato, crossing 
the plain at first not far from the river, till at Peretola 
it forsakes the Pistoian Way for a northern branch of 
it, Strada Lucchese^ in the shadow of the mountains ; 
but the tram for Campi starts from Y\dji72, della Stazione, 
and as the road, on leaving the city, runs for some 
distance through a mere modern suburb, it will be as 
well to use it so far, at least, as Ponte alle Mosse. 

Ponte alle Mosse, an ancient bridge over Mugnone, 
often rebuilt, gets its name from the Palio which the 
Commune decreed should start thence, and entering 
the city at Porta al Prato, should finish at Porta alia 
Croce towards Settignano. 

It was the victory of Campaldino, fought on S.^ 
Barnabas Day, nth June, 1289, that this palio cele- 
brated, and the race was run in honour of that saint. 
For, arrived under the walls of Arezzo after that famous 
battle which Corso Donati may be said to have won 
with his Pistoiesi, the Florentines, Villani tells us,i 
" caused the Palio for the Feast of S. Giovanni to be 
run there, e rizzaronsi piu dijici, e manganaronvisi 

^ Villani, Cronica, lib. vii., cap. 132. 

72 



PONTE ALLE Mt)SSE 73 

Asini con la mitra in capo per rimproccio del loro 
Vescovo ''. 

This, however, was not the only race, as it seems, 
that was run there. From 2nd October to 5th Oc- 
tober, 1325, Castruccio Castracani, Signor of Lucca, 
after beating the Florentines at Altopascio,^ and it 
was no small victory, encamped with all his troops in 
Peretola, that little town in the plain some four miles 
from the city, where the roads for Pistoja and for 
Lucca divide. Having burned and destroyed all the 
plain from the river to the hills about Careggi and 
Rifredi, according to Villani, on the 4th October, in 
order to shame and insult the Florentines still further, 
he caused three different sorts of Palii to be run under 
the very walls of Florence, from the bridge called 
alle Mosse to Peretola. The first was run by men on 
horseback, the second by men on foot, and the third 
by the loose women, naked all of them, who had 
followed the camp ; and not a man dared venture out 
of the City of Florence to take vengeance for this 
thing.2 

The bridge to-day, rising as it does, high above the 
river, affords a very beautiful view of Vallombrosa and 
the hills behind Fiesole and Settignano. And then 
just across the Mugnone, on either side the highway, 
is the park of Prince Demidoff, the gardens of that 
villa which was once the Convent of S. Donato. 

S. Donato a Torri was of old an Augustinian 
monastery, occupied by the Canons Regular. It was 
here in 1187 when the church was consecrated that 
Gerardo, Archbishop of Florence, sent by Pope 
Clement IIL, first preached to the popolo Fiorentino 
the second crusade, while, after the sermon, the Priore 

^ See my Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), 
p. 96. 

^G. Villani, Cronica, lib. ix., cap. 31, 37. 



74 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of S. Donate gave to Pazzo dei Pazzi, leader of the 
host about to set out for the Holy Land, a superb 
banner, blazoned with the Cross of the People. 

The Augustinians, however, in 1239 were succeeded 
by the Frati Humiliati, an order of White Benedictines 
that we first hear of in the time of Barbarossa in the 
beginning of the thirteenth century. Originally founded 
by certain Lombard exiles in Northern Germany, the 
Humiliati were at first, at any rate, a lay brotherhood, 
which had learned in exile the craft of weaving wool. 
Such wool as was to be had in Tuscany, a land of 
olives and vines almost without pasture, was poor 
enough, and it seems to have been only after the 
advent of the Humiliati to S. Donato a Torri that 
the greatest of Florentine industries began to assert 
itself, foreign wools being brought in a raw state to 
the city, and sold, dressed, and woven into cloth, in 
all the cities of Europe and the East. Later the 
brotherhood formed itself into a Religious Order under 
a Bull of Innocent IIL, and though from that time 
the brethren seem no longer to have worked at their 
craft themselves, they directed the work of laymen 
whom they enrolled and employed, busying themselves 
for the most part with new inventions, and the man- 
agement of what soon became an immense business. 
Their fame soon spread all over Italy, for, as Villari 
tells us,i " wherever a house of their Order was estab- 
lished, the wool-weaving craft immediately made ad- 
vance," so that in 1339 the Commune of Florence 
invited them to establish a house near the city, as 
they did in S. Donato a Torri which was given them 
by the Signoria. By 1250, however, we read that 
the Guild Masters were grumbling at the distance of 
the Frati from the city, so that in the following year 

^Villari, History of Florence (London, 1905), p. 318. 



S. DONATO A TORRI 75 

they removed to S. Lucia sul Prato within the city, 
under promise of exemption from all taxes ; and in 
1256 they founded a church and convent in Borgo 
Ognissanti. S. Donato a Torri seems in 1251 to have 
passed again to the Augustinian Order, to the nuns 
of S. Casciano a Decimo, and we find that in 1278 
the Contessa Beatrice of Tuscany left Lire cinquanta 
alle donne del Monastero di S. Donato a Torri. About 
thirty years later, in 1309, the nuns abandoned the 
Rule of S. Augustine for the Cistercian Rule of S. 
Bernard. In 1325 the convent fell into the hands 
of the Lucchesi troops under Castruccio Castracani. 
Whether they damaged it or not we do not know, but 
they certainly put the nuns to flight. Two hundred 
years later, during the siege of Florence in 1529, it 
was at the mercy of the German troops of Charles V., 
and again the nuns fled away, taking refuge in the 
Convent of S. Maria Maddalena near the Porta a Pinti, 
which already in the fourteenth century they had been 
called upon to reform. It was during this siege that 
the German troopers destroyed the beautiful Cenacolo 
of Masaccio in the refectory. 

Under the Grand Dukes the nuns returned to S. 
Donato, where they continued till their suppression 
was ordered by the French Government in 1809. 
Then after 18 14 Prince Demidoff bought the place, 
and turned it into a palace. When his son, who had 
become the husband of Mathilde Bonaparte, suc- 
ceeded him, the place was called in her honour Villa 
Mathilde, a name it bears to this day. 

Passing along the highway through these gardens, 
you come in something less than a mile to a turning 
on the right which leads to the bizarre tower visible 
from the Strada Pistoiese, called Torre degli Agli. 
One of the most important of the villas on this side 
of the city, it has played no little part in the social 



76 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

history of Florence. In the fourteenth, fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries it was the property of the Agli 
family, who, in the person of Messer Barnaba di Gio- 
vanni, gave so great a sum towards the building of the 
convent of S. Domenico at Fiesole. Before the end 
of the sixteenth century, however, while the villa be- 
longed to Caterina degli Agli, wife of Jacopo Gianfi- 
gliazzi, Grand Duke Ferdinand waited there to receive 
his consort, Cristina of Lorraine. Soon after, how- 
ever, the Agli sold the place, the Panciatichi buying 
it for some 2,330 scudi.^ Then in 1608 the new pro- 
prietors received there Maria Maddalena of Austria, 
wife of Grand Duke Cosimo IL, who, with much pomp, 
prepared thence to enter Florence in state. 

Returning along Via Torre degli Agli to the corner 
where four roads meet, you come upon an old Taber- 
nacle, Tabernacolo di Antonio Veneziano, they call it, 
a wayside shrine covered with the spoiled, but still 
lovely, frescoes of that master, or one of his pupils. 
Ruined though they be by time and Arno's floods, we 
may still see there the Deposition from the Cioss, the 
Death and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and the 
Last Judgment. Then, following the road to the right, 
northward, in a few paces we come upon the very 
ancient church of S. Maria a Novoli. 

The first record we have of this place dates from 
the twelfth century, but the church we see is not so 
old as that, for a disastrous flood in the first year of 
the thirteenth century destroyed it, and indeed more 
than once afterwards it suffered a like fate, so that to- 
day it is mainly a building of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries, though the Campanile is doubtless 
older. It is not, however, for the church itself we have 
left the highway, but for those precious things which 

1 Cf. Carocci, / Dintorni di Firenze (Firenze, 1906), vol. i., 
p. 338. 



PERETOLA 77 

it contains : a picture of the school of Ghirlandajo, very 
lovely and fair, Madonna enthroned with her Child on 
her knees, and beside her SS. Peter and Paul, Jacopo 
and Antonio Abate ; and a small painting on a gold 
ground of the Virgin and Bambino in the manner of 
Giotto ; while we shall not pass by without a thought a 
Crucifix by Gianbologna. 

If, however, it be architecture we seek, nothing surely 
could please us better than the Church of S. Cristofano. 
Returning to Via della Torre degli Agli, and turning 
to the right, we follow it for some half-mile, and there 
by the wayside, where four roads meet, is S. Cristofano 
a Novoli, a beautiful building of the fifteenth century, 
and under the portico is a great fresco of the time, 
a colossal S. Cristofano, bearing our Lord on his 
shoulder. 

A very ancient foundation, the church was rebuilt 
in the fifteenth century after one of the disastrous floods 
that, through all the Middle Age, ruined this part of 
the valley of Arno, and was well restored in 1837. 
To-day it is in the patronage of the Buonomini di San 
Martino.i 

Just here the Via della Torre degli Agli runs into 
the Strada Pistoiese, and some four hundred yards 
farther on is the village of Peretola, where in the 
Piazza, before the church of S. Maria, the Strada Luc- 
chese leaves the Pistoian Way. 

Peretola is famous for other things beside the en- 
campment of Castruccio Castracani, for the plaiting of 
straw, for instance, by which, it seems, it lives. Indeed, 
everywhere in this long suburb of Florence, for it is 
little more, you may see the women, half a dozen of 
them in a group sometimes, plaiting straw in the door- 
ways and in the street, while the goats pass, herd after 

^See my Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), 
p. 213. 



78 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

herd, and are milked at the doorstep — you may 
see it as you pass. Here, too, long and long ago. 
Cardinal Niccolo da Prato took refuge when he was 
compelled to leave the city, having failed in his mission 
to make peace between the Bianchi and the Neri.^ It 
was in the villa of Sennuccio di Senno Benucci that 
he hid himself on the evening of the 8th May, 1304. 
And here too lived the famous family of Vespucci, 
deserting the place, however, in the thirteenth century 
for Borgo Ognissanti within the walls, where Amerigo 
was born. 

It is not, however, any of these famous or picturesque 
things that brings us to Peretola to-day, but the little 
church of Madonna there, S. Maria Assunta in the 
Piazza. Probably one of the oldest village churches 
in the country round Florence, the tower still keeps a 
memory of its ancient beauty. S. Maria a Peretola 
was never in the possession of a religious order, but 
was always served by secular clergy. We hear little or 
nothing of it till the last year of the fourteenth century, 
when Pope Boniface IX. in a Bull permitted a bap- 
tismal font to be placed there, lest Florence should 
prove too far, or too hard to reach in the floods of 
winter. Always in the patronage of the Ospedale di S. 
Maria Nuova, it was the Bishop Leonardo Buonfede, 
Spedalingo in the middle of the fifteenth century, who 
enriched it with the precious works of art it possesses. 
It was for him that in 1466 Giusto d' Andrea painted 
the arms of the Ospedale on the fa9ade, and in the 
same year under the beautiful portico the same artist 
painted in fresco S. Antonio Abate enthroned between 
S. Jacopo and S. Egidio, while in the lunette above 
the door is another fresco, very lovely, earlier too, of 
Madonna with Bambino Ges^i, and two half figures of 

"'^^^Q my Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), 
p. 186. 




A TABERNACLE 

By Licca del.'a Kobbia, in the Chicrch of S. Maria, Peretola 



S. MARIA A PERETOLA 79 

saints, and under, three small tondi, our Lord between 
two saints and apostles. 

Within, the church has been lately restored, yet we 
may still find there the simple and beautiful font, a 
work perhaps by Francesco Ferrucci. In the north 
aisle is a half figure of our Lord, and opposite in the 
south aisle a half figure of S. Zanobi, fourteenth cen- 
tury works, while, when the church was restored in 
1888, frescoes were discovered over the altar of S. 
Leonardo, incidents in the life of that saint, beneath 
which is a Crucifixion between S. Lucia and S. Cate- 
rina that recalls dimly the work of Filippino Lippi. 

But by far the most beautiful and the most precious 
work of art in the church is the Ciborium of Luca della 
Robbia behind the high altar. The Tabernacle itself, 
of the most perfect early Renaissance design, almost 
classic in its simple severity, is of marble ; under a 
round arch above the tiny bronze doors, on either side 
of which an angel stands, holding, as it were, the Host 
in their hands, is a Pieta, while above is a terra-cotta 
frieze of three cherubim caught in two garlands, and 
above again, in the triangle, God the Father at Benedic- 
tion. Commissioned by the Ospedale of S. Maria 
Nuova in 1441,^ this is the first example of Luca's 
glazed work of which we have documentary evidence. 
It is lovely, this little hidden work by a master, rare in 
Florence, and hardly to be seen out of Italy : yet one 
may perhaps question the wisdom of mixing terra-cotta 
and marble ; those brightly coloured enamels seem to 
take away from the beauty of the more precious ma- 
terial, and in some way I cannot explain to rob the 
work of a certain dignity.^ 

^ See Maud Cruttwell, huca and Andrea della Robbia (Dent, 
1902), p. 6g. 

2 Miss Cruttwell, op. cit., p. 69, tells us that the Tabernacle 
was originally made for the Chapel of S. Luke in S. Maria 
Nuova. 



8o COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Wandering out of the church into the spoiled, but 
still beautiful cloister, it was with some surprise I found 
a stage erected there with footlights and the music 
stands for an orchestra, and all the accompaniments 
of a village theatre. Certainly all such rubbish ought 
to be cleared away, and yet — who knows if in such a 
place as Peretola — and it has had a bad name for 
long enough — the cloister of the church may not be 
the only private place in the village, since in Italy 
privacy is hard to come by anywhere, and most of all 
perhaps in such a place as this. And it is a 
miracle play, be sure, they act there for soldi in the 
evening. 

In the Piazza di S. Maria a Peretola the Strada 
Lucchese leaves the Strada Fistoiese, which we follow, 
taking therefore the road to the left till at no great 
distance we come to Petriolo, really a continuation of 
Peretola. Petriolo has very ancient memories, going 
back to the early part of the eleventh century. It is 
not, however, in these that we are interested, but in 
the little church of S. Biagio. Founded certainly in 
the eleventh century, as the semicircular apse attests, 
it has suffered many and many a restoration. Before 
the church is a sort of portico, and under this are 
some frescoes of the early fifteenth century in the 
manner of Bicci di Lorenzo ; they represent the Trin- 
ity, the Deposition from the Cross, S. Niccolo of Bari, 
S. Bartolommeo, S. Jacopo and S. Cristofano. Over 
the doorway, where the arms of the People and of the 
Pitti family, the patrons of the church, are set, is a 
lunette in which one of the pupils of Taddeo Gaddihas 
painted in fresco Madonna and our Lord between S. 
Biagio and S. Lucia. 

Within, the church is quite modernised, but Andrea 
di Giovanni has painted there very sweetly the story 
of Tobias and the Angel, and some pupil of Fra 




^ v?.-.^.-^^-^'^:ffi^g>;,.ar: 



S. BIAGIO A I'ETKIOI.O 



QUARACCHI 8 1 

Bartolommeo Maionna enthroned with her Son be- 
tween S. John the Divine, S. Nicholas of Tolentino, 
S. Luke and S. Francis of Assisi, while a charming 
ciborium of marble, carved with angels, recalls the 
work of Desiderio da Settignano. 

Following again Strada Pistoiese, it is but a little 
way to Quaracchi. " Ad Quarache nella corte del monas- 
tero di S. Martino " we read in an instrument quoted by 
Repetti, and dating, he tells us, from 866 ; " Ad Claras 
Aquas" as we may read to-day on any of the books 
issued by the Franciscans, who have a convent there. 
Well, it is for the sake of the convent we are come 
to Quaracchi. Once a villa of the Rucellai, built, as 
it is said, by Leon Alberti, that quiet convent just off 
the highway, is one of the most delightful and most 
hospitable places in all Val d'Arno. It has a garden 
too, full of vines and vegetables and wild flowers, and 
there in the courtyard, just out of the sun, is the print- 
ing press, where the Friars have already set up and 
published the works of S. Bonaventura, Ad Claras 
Aquas, as the imprint tells us. There is perhaps no- 
thing at all precious in their library, full as it is of 
useful and splendid volumes which they need for their 
work : but in that quiet great room lined with books, 
with galleries too, so that you may climb among them, 
one seems to have passed into a new world from the 
noisy and obscure streets of Peretola and Petriolo. 
And for kindness, too, they have printed there a little 
volume of the works of S. Francis, Opuscoli di S. 
Francesco, which you may carry away for remem- 
brance. 

It is a walk of about twenty minutes, hardly 
more, following the road immediately opposite the 
great gate of the convent to the Strada Lucchese. 
There you find the tram line, and as it will be as well 
to go thence to Campi in the tram you may rest at 
6 



82 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Quaracchi as long as you will, as long as is necessary, 
or you are able, meanwhile.^ 

At the corner where you come into the Strada Luc- 
chese there is a beautiful little tabernacle, Oratorio 
della Cupola, painted in fresco by some early fifteenth 
century painter ; the Virgin kneels weeping beside the 
body of her Son, beside her are S. John the Divine 
and S. Joseph of Arimathea, while behind two angels 
are waiting. 

Campi, once a strong castello, now a large borgo, 
is mentioned for the first time • in a privilegio of 
Charlemagne, which gave to the monks of S. Barto- 
lommeo a Ripoli the willows there. Such a document 
tells us, if we read between the lines, the whole secret 
of the place, half swamp, half pasture, crossed by deep 
ditches and dykes, and often subject to floods. And 
indeed it is but the most typical spot of a whole 
region of such places, where the rivers were both friend 
and foe, where the churches have been spoiled by the 
floods, but where the meadows are green and pleasant. 
From the earliest times, Campi had been the dwelling 
place, or at least the place of villeggiatura of many 
very powerful families, of which the greatest was 
perhaps the house of Mazzinghi. And far though it is 
from the city, it by no means escaped her tumults. 
For if the struggle of Guelf and Ghibelline was not 
actually born there, it suffered after Montaperto more 
than any other town, since the Ghibellines on their 
return not only refused to admit the Guelfs, but 
utterly destroyed their houses and burned their lands. 

1 The trams for Campi leave Peretola at 10.27, 12.47, 3.22 
and 5.22. If you leave Florence by the tram leaving Piazza 
della Stazione at g.20 a.m., you will have ample time to catch 
the 12,47 from Peretola (which will pass the place where you 
strike the Strada Lucchese some five minutes later), and so to 
lunch in Campi, where you arrive at i.io p.m. But see the time- 
table published by the company to be had in Piazza Signoria. 



CAMPI 83 

Small though it was, its position on the Strada Lucchese 
lent it a vast importance. Castruccio found time to 
destroy it in 1325, and Giovanni di Oleggio, Captain 
of Visconti's army, in 1352 made his camp there. 
Therefore in 1376 the Republic fortified the place, 
carefully, so that it became one of the strongest places 
in the neighbourhood of the city. Of these fortifica- 
tions only the ruins are left, though the work along 
Bisenzio is almost perfect. The gates, which Carocci 
tells us were standing till the middle of the last 
century, were then thrown down, others being built 
with a new bridge over the Bisenzio. 

For Campi had become the centre of a great agri- 
cultural district, where the straw industry was perhaps 
the chief source of wealth. It seems that the corn is 
sown on the higher plane of the mountains, on Mont' 
Amiata, for instance, where the colour of the stalk is 
a marvellous gold. The seed thus grown is sown the 
second year in Val d'Arno, and the straw used for 
making the famous Leghorn hats. All through the 
Arno valley from Peretola to Pisa, you may see the 
women sitting in their doorways binding the straw 
into different shapes of cappelli, or plaiting it in pre- 
paration into long strips ; but it is in the country 
round Campi, Brozzi, Signa and Lastra that the in- 
dustry is most flourishing ; the hats thus made being 
quite as good and lasting as the famous Panama, but 
alas, less fashionable. One of the finest sun-hats for 
ladies with about fifteen or even twenty plaits to the 
inch costs about fifteen lire, the maker getting from 
two to three francs for her labour. 

In the old days Campi was head of that district of 
the Co?itado of Florence, which included both Signa 
and Brozzi, it was within her walls that the Podesta 
took up his residence, and her Palazzo Comunale, even 
to-day, preserves still the many coats of these ofiicers. 



84 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

The great church of Campi is the Pieve di S. 
Stefano. A pieve was not a parish church, but the 
church at the head, as it were, of a collection of 
parishes, where was the baptismal font of the district. 
The parish priest is the curato, whereas the pieva?to 
is a much more important personage, having under 
him priorie and rettorie. Indeed, in the old days, he 
was in some sort Sindaco of a whole population or 
community. The bells of the pieve would call to- 
gether the people in any danger, or to give thanks to 
God, and indeed you often find, carved on the bells 
for this purpose : Ad Dei gloriam et Patriae libera- 
tionem. 

The Pieve di S. Stefano at Campi is of very ancient 
origin, and certainly older than the castello in which it 
stands. Restored and rebuilt many times, and in 1812 
covered with stucco, the old church has been spoiled 
or hidden under more recent work. Very few works 
of art remain there : a crucifix which is still held in 
great veneration, and which dates from the time of the 
Flagellanti, a picture in the manner of Filippino Lippi, 
of Madonna enthroned between S. Bartolommeo, S. 
Giovanni Battista and S. Antonio Abate, and a statue 
of S. Giovanni Battista by one of the della Robbia, 
being all that is left of the riches which were once in 
her keeping. 

But the most interesting building left in Campi is 
the Rocca of the Republic, now a fattoria which in 
great part, though ruined, preserves its ancient tower 
and platform and gate, and certain chambers, too, so 
that it is one of the fairest remnants of a military for- 
tress of that age left in Tuscany. 

The Strada Lucchese crosses the Bisenzio on its way 
north and west, and about half a mile from the bridge, 
beside the highway, stands the old church of S. Maria 
Assunta, completely spoiled now, but guarding still in 



CAMPI 85 

the Cappella di S. Jacopo some old frescoes of the life 
of that saint by the school of the Gaddi ; while from 
the same hand, over an altar in the north aisle, you 
may see Madonna enthroned between S. Giovanni and 
S. Lorenzo : with the date of the work, 1332. 

Round about are the villas of the great Signori, 
Rucellai, who were patrons of S. Maria Novella, Strozzi, 
who own the huge palace in Via Tornabuoni, Davan- 
zati too, Cordoni and Ginori. 

Returning a little on your way from S. Maria As- 
sunta, taking the first road to the right out of Strada 
Lucchese, you soon come to the Church of S. Lorenzo, 
and then, about a quarter of mile farther on, taking the 
road to the left, and after turning to the right again 
when you may, you come presently to the church 
of S. Martino, which was under the patronage of the 
Mazzinghi family, and in spite of its modernity, of very 
old foundation. There is still preserved a beautiful 
picture in the manner of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Ma- 
donna with our Lord in her lap between S. Martin 
and S. Peter Martyr, and two terra-cotta statues of 
S. Roch and S. Sebastian by some pupil of the della 
Robbia. 

Still following the road southward past the church, 
in another quarter of a mile you turn to the left, then 
to the right, and so follow the way till you come to 
Strada Pistoiese. Turning to the left along it, back 
towards Florence, in a few hundred yards you come 
to the borgo of S. Piero a Ponti, a straggling town that 
stretches for about half a mile along the road, in the 
midst of which is the sixteenth century bridge of 
Stefano Lancelli, which Vasari praises so highly. 

It is not, however, for that we have come to S. 
Piero, but to see the church there from which the 
borgo gets its name, where over the door is a beautiful 
lunette of della Robbia ware, representing Madonna 



86 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

with our Lord between S. Peter and S. Paul ; while 
in the church itself is a spoiled picture in the Byzan- 
tine manner. 

Not far away, due southward on the road which at 
first follows the right bank of the Bisenzio, turning 
out of Strada Pistoiese, just before you cross the 
bridge, is the Church of S. Mauro, in the village of 
that name, which still keeps two works of the della 
Robbia school, a tabernacle and a Madonna under 
the Eternal Father with saints and angels. By this 
way, too, you may reach S. Donnino a Brozzi without 
following Strada Pistoiese, that busy way, for, return- 
ing a few yards on your way, you follow the road 
back through the village to the right, soon crossing 
the Bisenzio, and then following the road up-stream 
to S. Donnino a Brozzi. 

Brozzi itself, with its subborght, is perhaps the most 
mediaeval, as it is certainly the most important of the 
little towns in the neighbourhood of Florence along 
the Strada Pistoiese. It seems to live for the most 
part by the manufacture of hats and all such things 
as may well be made out of straw. Like its neigh- 
bours, Campi and Peretola, it suffered in the wars of 
Castruccio, but again like them it rose from its ashes, 
and is to-day, as in the past, full of industry, and 
labouring men and women. It is not, however, to 
see their persistence and long-suffering we are come to 
so noisy and even wretched a place, but for the sake 
of its old churches, which still preserve a memory 
here and there of the beauty that is from of old. 

S. Donnino a Brozzi, at the western extremity of the 
little town, not far from Arno, dates certainly from 
the eleventh century, where in 1046 it is mentioned 
in a Bull of Gregory XL But the church we see 
to-day is for the most part a building of the seventeenth 
century, yet like so many of its sisters in the coun- 



BROZZI 87 

try round Florence, it keeps still, as though for love, 
a beautiful memory of the past. Here that memory 
takes the form of a Giottesque ancona in tempera on 
a gold ground in three compartments : in the midst, 
Our Lady enthroned with Bambino Gesu, and beside 
her S. Antonio Abate, S. Giuliano, S. Catherine and 
S. Lucia, while on either side are S. Donnino himself 
and S. John Baptist. In the gradino is the story of 
S. Donnino 's life and death. 

Returning on our way, and following the road to 
the Strada Pistoiese, we come just there to the Church 
of S. Andrea, restored and rebuilt in the seventeenth 
century, but of very ancient foundation : while the 
campanile is a really beautiful piece of work from the 
quattrocento. And here indeed there is more than a 
memory of ancient beauty, for S. Andrea seems to 
have kept nearly all her treasures about her. It was 
a pupil of Ghirlandajo^ who, under that Baptism of 
our Lord by a pupil of Verrocchio, painted a fresco 
of Madonna enthroned, holding our Lord on her 
knees to bless us, between that pensive S. Giuliano 
with his sword, and that elegant S. Sebastian with 
his three arrows. After all, is it Madonna who sits 
there so demurely, or Aphrodite herself, dressed in 
the Renaissance fashion, between Cupid her son, and 
Mars her lover, caught suddenly there one summer 
day in Val d'Arno ? 

It is, however, an altogether different impression we 
receive from the other fifteenth century picture there 
by Francesco di Giovanni Botticini,^ where Madonna 
sits again enthroned, but with a sort of sadness, her 
little Son just held on her knees, clasping a struggling 
bird in His hand : and on one side are S. Jacopo 

^ Mr. Berenson's attribution, most generously and kindly com- 
municated to me for my use. 



88 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

with clasped hands, and S. Antonio Abate, and on 
the other S. Bartolommeo and S. Sebastian. 

Above this beautiful picture is an Annunciation in 
a lunette, of the school of Alessio Baldovinetti, and 
under, this inscription : Questa capella chon tutti suoi 
ornamenti a facto fare Symo di Domemco Cecherelli 
perimedio de lanima sua net mcccclxxx. 

Not far away is a delicate crucifix painted by Pesello, 
and another fresco by a pupil or follower of Fra 
Bartolommeo, of S. Alberto and S. Sigismundo, with 
this curious inscription, referring to the malaria which 
once infested all this region so frequently flooded by 
Arno : — 

S. Alberto dovoto dela febre quotidima et terziana 

S. Sigismondo dovoto dela febre quart ana mdlxxx. 
While the triptych, where in the midst we see the 
Annunciation, and on either side S. Eustachio and 
S. Antonio Abate, is a late work of the quattrocento. 

Nor is S. Martino a Brozzi, the pieve of this district, 
in a by-way to the left along Strada Pistoiese, without 
its beauties, though they be less rare. The frescoes 
under the portico, early fifteenth century work, I think, 
have been spoiled by the weather, but within, though 
restored, the font is beautiful with mosaic, and in the 
sacristy are two fifteenth century pictures, fine enough 
for Florence herself, a Madonna and Child between S. 
Martin and S. Francis, S. John Baptist and S. Antonio 
Abate ; and a Madonna with our Lord and S. 
Giovannino. But for me, best of all things in Brozzi, 
is the wayside shrine close to the Fattoria Orsini. I 
found it, as, weary one day, I waited for the tram — 
that dreadful tram that makes pandemonium of the 
way right into Florence. It is a fresco of the Presepio 
you see there beside the way, where in the valley be- 
side Arno, Christ was born, and Mary worshipped him 
with Joseph her husband, and the ass and the ox 




■ THE NATIVITY 

Frovi the fresco by Maviarditn the Tabernacle at Brozzi (Fattoria Orsini) 



BROZZI 89 

stood in the stalls beside them under the thatch. All 
the way to Florence that picture by the wayside 
haunted me, and now that I am far away, and maybe 
shall never see it again, it still comes back to me as 
on that summer evening, when, weary in the heat, I 
stayed for a little in the shadow beside the vineyard, 
while the wind whispered over the olives, and the bells 
of S. Martino told me, as the picture said, that Christ 
was born again — yes, here in Val d'Arno, and not 
least — if it might be so — in my heart. 



MONTE OLIVETO, PONTE A GREVE, 
SETTIMO, LEGNAJA 

THE Porta S. Frediano by which Via Pisana leaves 
the city is one of the last of the old gates that 
are still in use to-day as a barriera. The way thence, 
as the name of the road tells us, leads to Pisa, and by 
that way and by that gate Charles VIII. of France 
entered the city and Rinaldo degli Albizzi left it after 
his night-long interview with Martin V. in S. Maria 
Novella. A quarter of a mile beyond the gates, on a 
hill, still covered with ilex and chestnut, stands the 
Monastery of Monte Oliveto, which gets its name from 
the monks of Monte Oliveto Maggiore in the Sanese. 
In the end of the thirteenth century, as it seems, there 
had been a little oratory here called S. Maria del 
Castagno, belonging to a Confraternity of merchants 
and artefici in Florence, who met there on the last 
Sunday in each month, and for this reason seem to 
have been called Ciccialardoni. Seven years later, in 
1297, a Confraternity di Gesu Cristo had established 
itself there. It was this latter company which in 1334 
resigned the place to Bernardo Tolomei, who intro- 
duced his rule there. 

The Congregation of the Blessed Virgin of Monte 
Oliveto was founded by Blessed Bernardo Tolomei of 
90 



MONTE OLIVETO 91 

Siena in 13 19. It seems that Bernardo, being blind, 
recovered his sight as by a miracle, and in thankfulness 
to the Blessed Virgin forsook the world and retired to 
a barren hill called Accona, now so gay with olives, 
between Siena and Monte Cetona, founding there the 
Olivetan Congregation under the rule of S. Benedict; 
and Madonna dressed his monks in white. As I 
have said, the Badia here on this hill outside Porta S. 
Frediano was founded in 1334. The church of the 
monastery, built in the middle of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, was placed under the protection of S. Bartolommeo 
to please Bartolo di Capponcino Capponi, who made 
the Order his heir. Whether it was destroyed by 
Giovanni Acuto or another I know not, but in 1472 
the beautiful church we see to-day was built there, 
perhaps by some pupil of Michelozzo's, and though it 
was restored in 1725 it still keeps much of the beauty 
that the fifteenth century builder contrived to give it. 

It is not, however, a monastery we see there to-day 
but a military hospital, and though the church is still 
gracious and lovely, it seems, in the absence of the 
monks, to be as it were widowed, in spite of its wealth 
of not very important pictures, the best and most famous 
of which have long since been carried away to the 
Uffizi and the Accademia.^ Among lesser work, 
however, there still remains a damaged fresco of the 
Last Supper by Sodoma, a beautiful and eager thing 
without the sensuousness that soon became almost a 
mannerism in so much of his work. Indeed in this 
fresco we find a certain virile splendour that haunts us 
for days, in the beautiful evil face of Judas for instance, 
the impetuous energy of S. Peter. 

1 For instance, the Annunciation of Verrocchio (Uffizi, No. 
1288) was painted for the chapel of the Badia here and for long 
hung in the sacristy of the Church of S. Bartolommeo. It was 
taken to the Uffizi in 1867. 



92 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

From Monte Oliveto it is a pleasant road, some 
half a mile long, that brings you to Bellosguardo, past 
the little Templar church of S. Vito. The great and 
beautiful villa of Bellosguardo is surely one of the 
oldest villas about Florence, for it belonged to that 
good knight Messer Cavalcante Cavalcanti, the father of 
the poet Guido, the friend of Dante. He was Signore 
of the castles of Le Stinche of Monte , Calvo in Val 
di Pesa, of Luco, of Ostina in the upper Arno valley 
and of other places too. His family is said to have 
come into Italy with Charlemagne. No doubt Guido, 
to whom Dante dedicated the Vita JVuovo, loved the 
place and often enough up there cursed Corso Donati, 
the great staunch man down in the city in Borgo degli 
Albizzi. And then, suddenly an exile, he had to leave 
all this and returning at last from far away Sarzana 
came home to die. " Guido Cavalcanti," says Villani,^ 
"returned thence sick, whence he died; and he was 
a great loss, seeing he was a philosopher and a man 
good at many things, save only this, that he was too 
sensitive and passionate." 

Guido was not the only one of his family to suffer. 
Masino was beheaded, the palaces of the family were 
burnt in the city, and when they fled to their hills and 
harried the contado their castles were besieged. Le 
Stinche was taken and its defenders imprisoned in the 
new prison the Signoria had built on the site of the 
Uberti houses in the parish of San Simone, and then 
the gaol came to be known as Le Stinche, a name it 
bears to this day. So the years passed, the Cavalcanti 
returned only to be exiled again; and settling in 
Naples, in 1447, they sold Bellosguardo to Tommaso, 
son of Gino Nerii de' Capponi, for 1,500 gold florins.^ 

iVillani, C/'o;«Va, lib. viii., cap. 42. 

2 See Janet Ross, Florentine Villas (Dent, 1902), p. 61. 




A COUNTRY PROCESSION 



BELLOSGUARDO 93 

Eighty years later the villa was a ruin spoiled, as it is 
said, in the siege. Then Cosimo I. took it by force 
and gave it to one of his servants ; then one of his 
favourites bought it, a certain Leonardo Marinozzi. 
His son in 1583 sold it to Antonio Michelozzi, whose 
descendants, Mrs. Ross tells me, still own it. It is 
easy to understand how the place won its name. 

From Bellosguardo we return to Via Pisana by a 
road that turns to the left in the great piazza before 
coming to S. Vito. Following the road downwards we 
come to Monticelli, where in the church of S. Pietro is 
a beautiful crucifix of the school of Giotto and some 
fine pictures of the sixteenth century. Then taking the 
tram ^ we follow the road for some two miles to Ponte 
a Greve. On the height of this great bridge on the 
left is a little tabernacle of the fourteenth century, 
graciously painted in fresco, Madonna in the midst 
with her little Son surrounded by saints. Standing 
there, before us, we see the great plain on the left bank 
of Arno between the river and the hills. Always sub- 
ject to floods, like the plain on the right bank between 
Rifredi and Signa, it is only in recent years that it has 
in some sort been rescued from the ravages of the 
winter rains gathered from the hills by Arno and its 
tributaries and spread disastrously over the plain. Yet 
for all the dykes which we shall see and the better 
drainage of the whole valley, as I write, the papers are 
full of the inondazione in Val d'Arno, and though 
doubtless things are not so bad as they were even 
in 1844, when the whole valley lay under water, all 
this country is still, as it were, in fear of the river 
which all the summer long, shrunken and wasted, 
encourages the dreaded malaria and in autumn and 



noisy 
Greve 



It is better to go by tram for the road is both dusty and 
y. The trams too run every twenty minutes to Ponte a 



94 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

winter often turns the broad, smiling valley into a 
swamp. 

It is across this plain, in spring after the long rain, 
a wilderness of wild flowers, that our way lies. For as 
soon as you have crossed the bridge you turn sharply 
down a good road to the right, and following it for 
some half-mile or so, come into Solicciano, a little vil- 
lage not much more than a huddle of houses, where in 
the midst stands the Church of S. Pietro. Founded 
somewhere in the eleventh century, like so many of its 
sisters hereabout, we hear of it for the first time in 
a contract of 1082 between the nuns of S. Maria a 
Montignano, its patrons, and the nuns of S. Appollonia 
in Florence. Its only claim on our notice to-day is that 
it contains a very beautiful fresco of Madonna painted 
by some pupil of Giotto's. Turning to the left just 
past the church and in about three hundred yards 
following the road to the left again, then to the right 
and again to the left till you come to a place where 
four roads meet, if you take the way to the right here, 
in about two miles following the road straight on 
through the vineyards along the ditch of Dogajella, 
you will come into the village of Badia a Settimo with 
its great ruined abbey. 

Not far away across the vines is the Pieve of S. 
Giuliano with its gaunt tower. It guards two charm- 
ing works of the fifteenth century sculptors, Antonio 
Rossellino and Giuliano da Majano, and two Giottesque 
pictures rather spoiled by the fogs of the plain. 

Badia a Settimo is the most characteristic village of 
all those scattered over the wide plain on the left 
bank of Arno. Nearer to the river than to the beauti- 
ful southern hills it has suffered more grievously than 
any other place from the winter floods of Arno, which 
have almost completely submerged one abbey and 
to a great extent have destroyed the other which rose 




THE PONTE A GREVE 



BADIA A SETTIMO 95 

above it. But, even in its dilapidation the Badia a 
Settimo is the most beautiful of all those which still 
hover, as it were, half fearful around that which Flor- 
ence has become. Little better than a somewhat noisy 
museum, Florence to-day can find neither pleasure 
nor delight in these homes of learning and silence. 
The Badia of Florence has no monks, the Badia a 
Fiesole is a school, the Certosa di Val d'Ema a 
national monument, Monte Oliveto a military hospital, 
and Badia a Settimo it seems has only escaped a like 
fate because Arno was kinder than man, for in destroy- 
ing it he has left it all its silence and nearly all its 
beauty. 

Who built this abbey which, half fortress, half 
church, stands so illusively in the plain beside Arno, 
among its beautiful ruined towers and broken battle- 
ments, remains something of a mystery. Some say 
that it was the Conti di Borgonuovo, called di 
Fucecchio, who founded it in 984. They were an 
ancient and powerful family of Teutonic origin, busy 
for so long in the contado of Florence, especially in the 
quarter of Oltrarno ; while in Fucecchio they held the 
Castello, and there for the most part was their seat. 
Villani, however, tells a different tale,^ speaking of the 
Marquis Ugo, who, as he says, founded the Badia of 
Florence in the year 979. " I take it," he says,^ " this 
must have been the Marquis of Brandenburg, foras- 
much as there is no other marquisate in Germany. 
His sojourn in Tuscany liked him so well, and especi- 
ally our city of Florence, that he caused his wife to 
come thither, and took up his abode in Florence as 

''■Cf. my Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), 
p. 107. 

2 Villani, Cronica, bk. iv., 2. The Badia of Florence was 
certainly founded by Ugo's mother, Countess Willa. Cf, my 
Florence and Northern Tuscany, pp. 254-255. 



96 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Vicar of Otho, the Emperor. It came to pass, as it 
pleased God, that when he was riding to the chase in 
the country of Bonsollazzo, he lost sight in the forest 
of all his followers, and came out, as he supposed, at a 
workshop where iron was wont to be wrought. Here 
he found men, black and deformed, who, in place of 
iron, seemed to be tormenting men with fire and with 
hammer, and he asked what this might be ; and they 
answered and said that these were damned souls, and 
that to similar pains was condemned the soul of the 
Marquis Ugo by reason of his worldly life, unless he 
should repent : who in great fear commended himself 
to the Virgin Mary, and when the vision was ended, he 
remained so pricked in the spirit, that after his return 
to Florence he sold all his patrimony in Germany and 
commanded that seven monasteries should be founded ; 
the first was the Badia of Florence to the honour of 
S, Maria; the second that of Bonsollazzo where he 
beheld the vision ; the third was founded at Arezzo ; 
the fourth at Poggibonizzi ; the fifth at the Verruca of 
Pisa ; the sixth at the city of Castello ; the last was 
the one at Settimo ; ^ and all these abbeys he richly 
endowed, and lived afterwards with bis wife in holy life, 
and had no son, and died in the city of Florence on 
S. Thomas's Day, in the year of Christ 1006, and was 
buried with great honour in the Badia of Florence." 

It is certain that in 988 Count Adimaro, son of 
the Marchese Bonifazio of Borgonuovo, gave to the 
abbey, together with many houses and lands, the 
Churches of S. Martino alia Palma and S. Donato a 
Lucardo. During the next three centuries it seems to 
have increased both in wealth ^ and power, extending 

1 And hence in all probability the name — the seventh abbey 
which Ugo founded. 

2 For all that concerns the abbey, see Anon., Cenni Storici 
intorno alia Badia di Settimo (Firenze, 1855). 




OLD GATE AT BADIA A SETTI.MO 



BADIA A SETTIMO 97 

its possession into the territory of Sommaia on Monte 
Morello and in the valleys about it northwards. Then 
Conte Lotario enlarged it, and in 1004 it came into 
the possession of the Cluniacense monks. Conte 
Guglielmo Bulgaro, the son of Conte Lotario, gave them 
the Church of S. Salvatore in the Apennines with a vast 
territory between Florence and Bologna. ^ It was the 
same Conte Guglielmo who invited S. Giovanni Gual- 
berto,- founder of the Vallombrosan Order, to reform 
this monastery also. S. Giovanni seems to have 
ruled there till his death at Passignano in 1073, and 
it was with his consent, if not under his orders, that 
S. Pietro Igneo, on 13th February, 1068, went through 
the Ordeal by Fire before an enormous crowd of 
people, which had come out of the city to see the 
miracle.^ 

It came about on this wise. Simony and Nicolaitism 
were rife in all Tuscany, and not least it seems in 
Florence. S. Giovanni was determined to extirpate 
them. He began with the greatest villain about him, 
Pietro Mazzabarba, who had " simoniacally " obtained 
the see of Florence, it appears through the influence of 
the Emperor. At this time S. Giovanni was Abbot of 
S. Salvi beyond the Porta alia Croce of Florence, the 
second monastery of his Order. There one night in 
1062 a band of hired roughs stormed the church, and 
the monks being in choir at the time, some were killed 
and, as it is said, all wounded, and even the abbey 

1 Cf. Repetti, Dizionario, under Abazia a Settimo, vol. i., 
p. 27. 

2 For an account of S. Giovanni Gualberto, see my Florence 
and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, igoy), pp. 363-65. 

3 For an account of what follows, see Diego di Franchi's 
Historia del Patriarcha S. Giovangnalherto (Firenze, 1640), p. 
453, and Brocchi, Vite de' Santi e Beati Fiorentini (Firenze, 
1752), a most interesting book. 

7 



98 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

sacked and fired. Those, however, who wished to kill 
S. Giovanni Gualberto were disappointed, for the great 
abbot, an old man at the time, had by chance delayed 
his arrival by a single day. The agitation among the 
people for the deprivation of the bishop had always 
been great, but after this outrage it increased daily, 
till at last the Florentines appealed to S. Giovanni to 
permit a judgment of God by fire between the bishop 
and himself. He agreed. And the place chosen for 
the Prova was the piazza in front of the Badia a 
Settimo, not long since, by the desire of Conte Guglielmo 
Bulgaro, become a Vallombrosan house. Some five 
thousand persons went out of Florence that February 
morning to see what God would do. It is said that 
it was S. Giovanni himself who chose his champion, 
Don Pietro Aldobrandino, canonised later as S. Pietro 
Igneo. Two bonfires were built in front of the abbey, a 
narrow lane being left between them : it was the road S. 
Pietro had to walk. After S. Pietro had said Mass, so 
far as the Agnus Dei, four monks came out of the 
church, one bearing a crucifix, another holy water, 
another incense, and the fourth candles lighted, to bless 
the wood which, already piled up, awaited the flame. 
Then Mass being over, S. Pietro himself cam.e forth, 
and having put aside his chasuble, but wearing still 
his alb and stole and maniple and bearing a cross 
between his hands, he prayed aloud to Almighty God 
that He would show forth His Justice, and so, giving 
his brethren the kiss of Peace and ever holding on 
high the cross he bore in his hands, without fear he 
entered among the flames. When he came to the end 
of the fiery road he found, so the tale goes, that he had 
dropped his maniple, so he turned back to fetch it, 
and came at last out of the fire scatheless. And the 
people fell upon him to touch if it might be but the 
hem of his robe. Thus, as they say, simony was killed 



BADIA A SETTIMO 99 

in Florence. An inscription still reminds us of the 
miracle : 

Igneus hie Petrus medios pertransit ignes, 
Fluminarum victor, sed magis haereseos. 

Hoc in loco miraculo S. Joannis Gualberti, quidam fuere 
confortati haeretici. MLXX. 

After Conte Guglielmo, Conte Uguccione became 
a great benefactor of the abbey, and his wife Cecilia 
was buried there in 1096.1 Many Emperors and 
many Popes gave the abbey their protection, and then 
here, as elsewhere, Gregory IX., thinking to bridle it, 
turned out the monks that followed the Rule of S. 
Benedict and installed in their place the Cistercians, 
bringing the abbey directly under his authority in 
1236. The Cistercians held it for more than five 
hundred years, till indeed it was suppressed in 1782. 
They seem to have been welcome from the beginning 
and soon to have won the respect of the Commune 
of Florence, which gave into their charge the admin- 
istration of the taxes, the inspection of the walls of the 
city and the bridges, and, strange occupation for a 
Congregation of monks even in those days, the con- 
struction of castles and fortified places in the district ; 
later they kept the great seal. They were exempt too 
from all state taxes, and indeed so great was their 
power and wealth that on his investiture the abbot 

^ These two inscriptions record the fact : — 
Anno MXCVI Dominicae Incarnationis vii. Kal. Mai. 9. Cilia 
Comitissa, cujus corpus hie requiescit in pace. 

Gasdia dicta fui generoso stemmate ducta, 

Atque viri clari morte diu tabida 

Gloria, forma, decus, congestio divitiarum, 

Nobilitas carnis quam cito morte fugis ! 

Corpus terra voret, set spiritus ibit ad astra 

Erectus meritis ac nati (sic) studiis. 

Te nimium posco vel tantum dicere, lector 

Junge Deus Sanctis, quaeso, tuam famalam. 



loo COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

could afford to pay a thousand gold florins to the 
Court of Rome.^ 

The older part of the abbey, as we now see it, is 
a building of this time — the thirteenth century. It 
was, however, much rebuilt and enlarged later, the 
walls being added by the republic after the expedition 
of Sir John Hawk wood in T371, when the whole 
contado was laid waste. These walls surrounded the 
abbey completely, the four towers in their circuit 
dominating the whole plain. The beautiful gate-tower 
we see to-day is almost all that is left of them. A 
relief of our Lord and two saints stands over it, and 
in an inscription under the feet of Christ you may 
read how in 1236 the abbey passed to the Cistercians : 
Anno Domini mccxxxvi. SS. Dmn. N. Gregorius 
IX. dedit hoc Monasterium de Septimo Ordin. Cisterc. 
cum esset liberum et exemptum ab omni regio patronatu^ 
quod in plena liber tate a dicto Ordine pacifice possidetur. 

There have been in all two churches and a chapel 
on this spot. The first church was probably engulfed 
gradually in the swamp when Arno turned year by 
year the whole plain into a morass. The chapel, 
now reached from the corridors of the monastery, 
stood beside the old church, to-day, more than half 
sunk in the mud, is used as a sort of shed by the 
contadini. The frescoes, traces of which, little more 
than outlines, may be seen on the beautiful arched 
roof scarcely six feet above the mud, have been ruined 
by the floods of Arno, the inundation of 1844 complet- 
ing the wreck of centuries. 

The church we see to-day was built in the thirteenth 
century at right angles above the original building. 
It once stood high above the plain and was reached 
by a long flight of steps which, like the old chapel, 

1 Cf. Anon., LaBadia di Settimo (Firenze, 1855), p. 32, where 
the quotation is given from Ricca, torn, i., p. 307, Descriz. ecc. 



BADIA A SETTIMO loi 

have disappeared into the mud. The most beautiful 
of the buildings which remain to us is the tower, a 
hundred and eleven feet high, circular half-way to the 
top and then hexagonal, a work as it is said of Niccolo 
Pisano, who is credited too with the similar tower of 
S. Niccolo in Pisa. Within, the church is a little cold 
and empty, full of loneliness, too big for the handful of 
peasants who worship there. About the choir is set 
a frieze of cherubim, alternating with the Lamb hold- 
ing the banner of Resurrection, by one of the della 
Robbia school. The most precious thing left here, 
however, is a lovely tabernacle or ambry in the chapel 
at the end of the north aisle, a work by Desiderio da 
Settignano, who has set about the door, as it were on 
guard, four listening angels. Here, too, above the 
high altar, is a silver reliquary containing the miraculous 
ashes of S. Quentin, who, martyred in Paris long and 
long ago, when his body was brought to Brozzi by the 
monks preferred Badia a Settimo ; therefore he caused 
this silver casket containing his bones to float across 
Arno when it was big, and the monks finding it, set 
it over the high altar, but again it moved by a miracle 
every morning into this very place, so that at last 
they left it there, where it stands to this day. 

So runs the tale, it is but a legend after all of 
flooded fields. Certainly from the earliest days the 
abbey suffered from the floods, and we find the monks 
perforce almost, learning to be engineers. They built 
weirs and locks and mills, but far from controlling the 
inundations, they seem to have made them worse, 
besides interfering with the navigation — such navigation 
as Arno here could bear — so that in 1385 the Republic 
ordered the destruction of their work. Yet it is not 
so long ago that their ideas, some of them at any rate, 
were adopted by the authorities, as we may see, if 
leaving the abbey church by the western doors we 



I02 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

turn to the right along the road, which leads us through 
the great iron gates oid. podere, across a wooden bridge 
by the house of a contadino, and then, as just a footpath, 
climbs the bank of the great dyke which, turning to 
the right, we may follow towards Ugnano. It is these 
grass-grown dykes which now to some extent keep 
Arno within bounds and save the fields from destruc- 
tion. Yet in autumn, indeed, after the October rains, 
I have seen that vast plain little better than a morass, 
a lake of water in which the trees, the vines still about 
them, seemed to shiver in misery. In summer the 
whole valley is a fiery furnace, but in spring or early 
autumn nothing is more delightful than this world 
where on one side the river glides by in the trembling 
shadow of the poplars, and on the other, the green 
delicious plain stretches away to the beautiful hills. 
You may follow along these dykes for miles on the 
soft grass past Ugnano whose ancient church with its 
pointed campanile soon greets you but a few paces 
from the river bank, past Mantignano too, not so near 
but not too far away, whose square church tower rises 
between the poplars almost as light as they. 

S. Maria a Mantignano was once the church of a 
Benedictine nunnery which we first hear of in a docu- 
ment of the year 1084. Founded as we may suppose 
not long after the Badia a Settimo, it had much the 
same patrons but was less happy in its fate, for it was 
suppressed by Eugenius IV., when he was in Florence 
in 1440. There is nothing to see in the church, and 
indeed it is scarcely worth while to leave the pleasant 
way along the dykes for its sake. For following along 
that lofty way presently we come to that shady place 
where Greve runs into Arno. There we turn up the 
smaller stream and in about a quarter of a mile come 
to a great wooden bridge, which we cross, and follow- 
ing the road find ourselves in the little village of 



CINTOJA 103 

Cintoja, where at the cross roads in the midst of the 
place is set one of the loveliest shrines in Tuscany, a 
Madonna and Child between two saints, painted in 
fresco, perhaps by some pupil of Neri di Bicci. And 
then it might seem to be Neri di Bicci himself who 
has painted on a gold ground the Coronation of the 
Virgin behind the high altar in the Church of S. Barto- 
lommeo there. It is one of the delights of the by-ways 
about Florence to come upon such a thing as this in a 
village which even Repetti discusses in some twenty 
lines or so, fully a half of which is devoted to the de- 
rivation of its name. Cintoia, Cintoria, Cinturia, Cen- 
turie Cesariane he calls it, adding that its name is 
mentioned in an instrument of the year 724 — so long 
ago as that — ubi etiam Cintoria nominatur. The road 
runs with many turnings, but direct, from Cintoja to 
Legnaja. Before coming to that little town on the 
Via Pisana, it is worth while, more than worth while, to 
turn to the left where four roads meet at right angles 
about half a mile beyond La Torre, to go to Le 
Querce, where the little church keeps still some 
fifteenth century frescoes. 

From there it is but another half-mile into Legnaja, 
now a suburb of the city, but in the fourteenth century, 
as Repetti proves,^ a Rocca guarding the Pisan Way. 
The oldest building in Legnaja to-day, however, is the 
church of S. Quirico, which dates from the time of 
Conrad IL, in 1038. It was Fra Filippo Lippi's 
church too, for here he became rector when having run 
away with Lucrezia Buti from the convent in Prato,^ 
Cosimo de' Medici befriended him and made the Pope 
his friend. 

It is, however, in S. Angiolo, a later foundation, that 

^ Repetti, Dizionario, vol. ii., p. 675. 

^ See my Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), pp. 
389-92. 



104 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

we most delight to-day — S. Angiolo, called in 1275 
S. Salvatoreand then S. Michele Arcangiolo. Nothing 
remains of thirteenth century work in the church, but 
there is a fine fifteenth century picture over the altar, 
and in the Canonica a beautiful Annunciation, dated 
1420. 



VI 

BAGNO A RIPOLI, PATERNO, RUB ALLA, AND 
ANTELLA 

THE little borgo of Bagno a Ripoli lies to the west 
of Florence on the southern bank of the Arno, 
some three miles from the city, and through it runs 
the old road to Arezzo and Rome, Via Aretina Vecchia, 
which crosses the great hills of S. Donato, the more 
modern road through Val d'Arno joining it just above 
Lucina.i 

Bagno a Ripoli takes its name from a warm spring 
on the banks of the Arno about which the Romans 
built a bath, vestiges of which were discovered so long 
ago as 1687. But now all this district, Pian di Ripoli, 
is a delicious garden, the most fruitful and perhaps 
the most beautiful part of the valley of Florence. A 
tramway to-day along the old Via Aretina brings the 
village within a few minutes of the city, and it is by 
this way we shall go, leaving the tram, however, 
just before we reach the village, at the Pieve di S. 
Pietro, the mother church, as it were, of all this dis- 
trict, called in 799 Pieve di S. Pietro a Quarto, but 
by the thirteenth century acquiring the name it goes 
by to-day, Pieve di S. Pietro a Ripoli. 

Among the most ancient and the most important of 

1 See supra, p. 41. 
105 



io6 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the mother churches ^ about Florence, within its juris- 
diction were some fifteen parishes stretching from S. 
Martino a Monte Pilli to S. Maria a Settignano, so that 
its rule was not altogether on one side of the Arno. 
Spoiled though the church is to-day, it yet keeps about 
it something of its ancient beauty, if only in the sim- 
plicity of its fafade or that airy fourteenth century 
portico which stands before it, while its high beautiful 
tower seems to have come to us almost without hurt 
from the thirteenth century. Still near the door in a 
lunette you may see a shadow of its old splendour. 
Madonna in the midst with our Lord in her arms and 
on either side S. Peter and S. Paul ; a spoiled work of 
the early cinquecento. 

Within all is stucco and whitewash, and indeed the 
only thing that remains to us of any yalue there is a 
beautiful marble ciborium, perhaps by Benedetto da 
Rovezzano, and certainly of the fifteenth century. 

Beside the church is an oratory, Beati Misericordes 
Quoniam Ipsi Misericordiam Consequentur, once be- 
longing to the Compagnia della Croce. Within, is a 
fine Giottesque Crucifix and a picture of the Cruci- 
fixion of the Florentine school of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, not unlike the poorer work of Fra Bartolommeo. 

From this lonely church by the side of the ancient 
way, the road to Rome, it is only a matter of half a 
mile into the village of Bagno a Ripoli. And there 
on the very threshold at the corner of the Strada della 
Nave on the left which leads to the Ferry at Rovez- 
zano, is one of the joys of these Tuscan country places, 
a shrine beside the way, built at the corner of the old 
Palazzetto Pretorio, the walls of which are still set with 
coats of arms. In a tabernacle of the fifteenth cen- 
tury we may see Madonna enthroned with our Lord 

1 1 so translate Pievc. For an explanation of the meaning 
of the term, see supra, p. 84. 




THE CRUCIFIX 
By Lorenzo di Niccolb, in the Church of S. Giorgio a Ruballa 



AMICO DEL VIAGGIATORE 107 

in her lap, and beside her S. Martino and S. Biagio. 
In the roof is the half figure of God the Father, and 
without, the Annunciation, and on either side Christ 
Crucified and S. Antony, abbot. No masterpiece, I 
think, in any church in Christendom touches me so 
nearly as these little wayside shrines that, like their 
sisters the flowers, are scattered along the Tuscan 
roads, to remind us, as the sky continually does, in 
Italy of the friendship of God and man, their love for 
one another, in a world which the one made that the 
other might enjoy it. 

It is upon another of these tabernacles that you 
come as, following still Via Aretina uphill, you enter 
Meoste. The houses, it is true, have almost smoth- 
ered it, but it still keeps its brightness in the sunshine 
for us who pass by, where Madonna enthroned with 
her Son among the saints and angels seems to bless us 
and to cheer us on our way. Who can have been the 
painter of these beautiful but fading things, fading now 
how surely before our indifference and the dust and 
hurry of our automobiles ? Perhaps it was Niccolo di 
Piero Gerini, he who painted the scenes of the Passion 
in the sacristy of Santa Croce, or perhaps it was a 
lesser man, nameless now, but whom, since it is be- 
come the fashion to find out the authors of all beau- 
tiful things and to give them names, we may well call, 
whatever style he adopts, our friend, that Amico del 
Viaggiatore who has passed at some time, it seems, 
along all these ancient roads, and even through the 
by-ways, scattering his blossoms. 

The road climbs gently out of Meoste into La Croce, 
a mere group of houses among the vineyards that 
stretch over hillside and valley to Florence far away. 
And indeed by this road perhaps, rather than by any 
other, the sweetness and sincerity of this Tuscan land- 
scape reveal themselves to us, in the delicate strength 



io8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of the lines of the hills there above Settignano, the 
beauty of the cypresses over the olive gardens, the 
sanity and joy of the earth. In such a world one 
comes to think little of the work of the painters hid- 
den in the churches ; one grudges the time spent out 
of the sun, and yet . . . 

In La Croce certainly there is little to see ; in the 
oratory there, only an outline of a Crucifixion on the 
damp wall. It is in the olive gardens among the corn, 
on the hillside among the cypresses, in the little houses 
of the contadini dotted about the valleys, in the 
broken Castelli that crown the heights, that we shall 
find our joy, rather than in the darkness of that 
spoiled church. 

And of all these villages so full of life and delight, 
Paterno is, I think, the most charming and the most 
friendly. Standing as it does on the lower slope of 
Monte Pilli, that ever since we left Bagno a Ripoli 
has towered over us, it is little more than a huddle of 
houses beside the white road to Rome, but on enter- 
ing it some new joy — or is it just fancy — seems to come 
into the sunlight, where at a winding of the road under 
the blue sky the wind turns all the olives to silver. 
Just there on a road that climbs the hill to the left, 
through the vineyards in country quietness, the Church 
of S. Stefano waits in the sunlight as though for the 
sound of her own mid-day bells. Restored and for the 
most part spoiled as she is, that quietness lingers with 
her still, and so it is without surprise you accept the 
simple thing she has to offer you, just a picture of 
Madonna, praying beside her little Son, while S. Joseph 
sits by, thinking ; the work, they tell you, of a Friar 
Paolino da Pistoja, a pupil of Fra Bartolommeo, who 
it seems kept the simplicity of which Michelangelo 
robbed his master. 

So we return to the highway, and following it, pres- 




IMADONNA WITH SAIXTS AND ANGELS 
From the picture by Bernardo Daddi in the Chicrck of S. Giorgio a Riiba/ta 



S. QUIRICO A RUBALLA 109 

ently, climbing still, we come to Fonte del Pidocchio, 
where the road divides, the way to the left being the 
older steep way to Arezzo and Rome, which the new 
road to the right joins again at Le Quattrovie under 
San Donato. Following the new road, in about a mile 
we come to a great old villa close beside the road, that 
indeed might almost house an army, called Le Corte. 

In the begianing of the fifteenth century, Signor Car- 
occi tells us, it belonged as it had done for centuries to 
the Peruzzi family, who at the end of the sixteenth 
century sold it to Antonio di Filippo Magalotti. Later 
it passed through many hands, till in 1801 the Duch- 
essa Laura Salviati left it to the Spedale di S. Giovanni 
di Dio in Florence. Its interest for us however might 
seem to be that while so many of the ancient villas 
about Florence have been destroyed or rebuilt, the 
Florentine being indeed altogether a lover of the city, 
Le Corte keeps still its ancient form within and with- 
out, and is indeed an example hard to beat of the 
mediaeval villa, half palace, half fortress, a great square 
building of ruddy stone, cool in summer and possibly 
warm in winter too, capable at any rate of resisting a 
siege or of hiding a troop of armed men. 

Le Corte stands within the parish of S. Quirico a 
Ruballa. Following the highway past it, not descend- 
ing to the right but keeping straight on, just where the 
village begins, a road turns uphill to the left once more, 
through the olive gardens, to the parish church of San 
Quirico. Small though it is and on a country way on 
the verge of the woods, S. Quirico is one of the most 
ancient churches of Monte Pilli. Its patrons were the 
Peruzzi, and in 12 14 there was founded beside it a 
spedale for pilgrims which took the title of Bigallo. 
Later this Ospedale was converted into a convent of 
nuns ; and as Repetti tells us, in that place was a per- 
ennial spring of clear water which the Signoria of 



no COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Florence on the 19th November, 1294, spent seventy 
florins to preserve. 

It was a hot day in June when I came to S. Quirico. 
The midday gun had sounded half an hour before ; all 
the world was sleeping. Half afraid that I should dis- 
turb a siesta, I knocked at the door of the canonica 
and presently the priest himself appeared, a severe yet 
kindly man who little by little beginning to smile was 
content at last to show me what treasures he had. 
One o( them at least I shall never forget. For after 
uncovering, not without much trouble and many dim 
mutterings, the Madonna of the place, a picture per- 
haps by Domenico Puligo, where Mary holds Christ 
in her arms who has just grown weary of playing with 
S. Giovannino, he led me behind the high altar where 
there was hidden one of the most beautiful of those 
Giottesque Crucifixes which I have so loved. How 
weary one grows of all the realistic pictures in the 
world ; sometimes they press upon one in the galleries 
where they are prisoners like an immense crowd of 
outraged people who can never die, whom we have 
imprisoned to stare at and criticise at our leisure. It 
is only of those pictures, half pattern, half the impas- 
sioned gesture of a dream, of which we never grow tired 
or weary wherever they be, and then it is most often alone 
in some forgotten place like this church at Ruballa that 
we find them. And for what have we forgotten them : 
for the discontented tireless genius of the world. 
What sort of man is he who could hope to live in the 
presence even of so lovely a thing as Mona Lisa, or 
who could bear to stay always near the Assunta of 
Titian? These and such as these are too subtle or 
too strong for us, we look at them as we look at the 
sun and pass into the shadow. But those pictures of 
the Annunciation, or the Nativity of our Lord, or 
the Coronation of Madonna, those early Crucifixes 




S. ANTONIO ABATK 
Fj-om the fresco by Spinello Aretuio in the Oratoi-io di S. Catefvia, 



S. GIORGIO A RUBALLA iii 

too, full of an exquisite pattern of line and colour, mere 
multi-coloured shadows on the wall, we can bear all 
day long, they seem to fall in with one's mood, to be 
content to minister to us, and will never thrust them- 
selves upon us or compel us to suffer some strong and 
profound emotion that to know for a moment is plea- 
sure, but torture to endure for ever. Who indeed could 
bear to sleep beneath a picture of the Crucifixion by 
any later painter ; but under such a thing as this Cross 
in S. Quirico one might be content, not to sleep only, 
but to die ; it is just a beautiful symbol, a shadow on 
the white wall at sunrise and sunset, of the thought that 
is in our hearts. And then if you want reality, look 
you, there are the hills and the gardens : and if indeed 
you would see Madonna, as perhaps she was, why, 
there she sits — is it not so ? — under the cypresses in 
the cool of the day not far from the house, singing to 
her little son. When will Art again as in Duccio's day 
free itself from the convention of reality, and return to 
the convention of beauty ? 

So I thought on my way downhill, back to the high- 
way. Then, following it, with the great hill and Castello 
of Montisoni ever before me, in something under half 
a mile I came to Ruballa itself and the Church of S. 
Giorgio at the end of a lane that breaks there into a 
sunny piazza on the verge of the hillside covered with 
olives. And since I have praised so much the Cru- 
cifix of S. Quirico, what can I say of the two most 
precious treasures of S. Giorgio ? Hidden away in 
this tiny country church. Madonna herself — our most 
beautiful thought of her — seems to hover over the altar 
between the slim white candles, standing there like 
lilies about to burst into blossom. It is a work of 
Agnolo Gaddi, and as it seems to me, the most beauti- 
ful of all the pictures that yet remain in the churches 
about Florence. In the midst is Madonna with our 



112 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Lord in her arms and round about her are four angels, 
with S. Matthew kneeling before her, and beside him 
an angel, while beneath in a friar's dress kneels the 
donor. Who would not give for a picture like this all 
the work, yes, even the portraits, of such a man as 
Andrea del Sarto ? 

Nor is this the only treasure in the church, for over 
the altar stands another of those Giottesque Crucifixes, 
more beautiful and more perfect than the masterpiece 
of S. Quirico. Ah ! truly to come out of the sun into 
the coolness of a village church and to find there such 
things as these is one of the joys of the traveller in 
Tuscany. That those in authority should ever have 
been so foolish as to steal them away from such a 
place as this and to hang them in a museum where they 
are not only ridiculously out of place, but even absurd, 
is a stupidity so astonishing as to be inexplicable. 

On coming out of the church you follow the road 
downwards, turning first to the right and then to the 
left, making for the great towered Villa La Torre, 
where the son of Robert Browning has made his 
home. It is like an English country house to-day, 
save for its splendid tower, but long and long ago it 
was a fortress of the Peruzzi, the most important, 
Signor Carocci tells us, of all those castles, palaces 
and villas which that great family possessed on the 
hills of Ruballa, Baroncelli and Antella, and for this 
reason it was not sold but guarded jealously till our 
own days, Ubaldino Peruzzi, that great Florentine 
who helped to prepare the way for Modern Italy, 
coming there to die. Signor Cavaliere Roberto 
Browning bought the place in 1901. 

So, following where the road leads, you wind down 
hill through the laughing olives to Antella, that busy 
place in the midst of which is the Church of S. Maria 
Incinula, which has given its name, though changed, 




ST. CATHERIXE OF ALEXANDRIA 
by Spiiiello Aretiiio in the Oratorio di S. Caterina, mat- Antet/a 



ANTELLA 113 

to the village. Nothing of much interest remains 
there to-day — a beautiful and delicate ciborium of the 
fifteenth century above the font, the font itself a late 
work of the sixteenth century — that is all. 

But if returning a little on your way you take the 
path under a villa through the olive gardens, which 
leaves the village street (on the left as you turn back) 
just opposite the road by which you have come from 
La Torre, you may go very pleasantly over the hills 
to Bagno a Ripoli, passing one treasure at least by 
the roadside, and that is among the finest things in 
Tuscany. 

Leaving then the village street by this path on the 
left,^ you wind among the olives and peach-trees and 
cypresses really through the poderi, till you spy a great 
villa on the hill-top not far away to the right, when 
you make towards it, Rospigliosi they call it, and pass- 
ing behind it, when the road turns to the right, follow 
it into the valley of Rimezzano, 

Villa Rospigliosi, Poggio a Grilli, as it used to be 
called, belonged in the fifteenth century to Giovanni 
d'Ottobuono, Archbishop of Amalfi, but it is not for 
his sake we have come this way, but because at the 
foot of the hill (the first building you come to, at the 
second turn of the road after leaving the villa) there is 
a chapel, certainly as big as many a parish church, 
which Spinello Aretino has painted in fresco both 
within and without, while over the altar still stands 
a marvellously lovely triptych, an almost perfectly 
preserved work by Agnolo Gaddi. 

Utterly neglected and forsaken, this chapel was 
built long and long ago in the midst of their vast 
estate by the great house of Alberti, who employed 

1 If you are in any doubt, ask the sacristan of S. Maria all' 
Antella to put you on the way to the Cappella di S. Caterina. 



114 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

to paint there the best masters of that age. When I 
saw the place in the autumn of 1907 it was used as a 
storehouse for nQ\N Jiaschi, and the damp had already 
spoiled in part the lower frescoes. Yet Spinello of 
Arezzo was by no means a mere imitator of Giotto. 
A son, it might seem, of the great Ghibelline house 
which had taken refuge in Arezzo in 1308, about 1348, 
when Arezzo was sacked, he took refuge in Florence, 
painting there many frescoes and altar-pieces, among 
which perhaps the work which shows his style to best 
advantage is the series in fresco of the life of St. Bene- 
dict at S. Miniato. Far more splendid than these 
well-known and fading masterpieces, however, is his 
work here in this unknown chapel which Crowe and 
Cavalcaselle seem never to have found, but which has 
escaped not the immense research of Signor Venturi. 
Here in nine great and splendid frescoes Spinello tells 
the story of the life and death of S. Catherine of 
Alexandria. Over the altar is the marvellously well- 
preserved triptych of Agnolo Gaddi, of Madonna with 
our Lord in her arms between two saints ; and under, 
in the gradino^ on either side of the Pieta, the martyr- 
doms of S. Lorenzo and another saint ; and above, 
in the cusps, Christ in the midst, and on one side the 
Angel of Annunciation, and on the other Madonnina. 
Spinello Aretino, the author of those magnificent 
frescoes, was the son of Luca Spinelli, who **did 
nothing for his education, allowing him only to learn 
the rudiments" ; nevertheless he quickly became pro- 
ficient, so that after a short instruction under Jacopo 
da Casentino, at the age of twenty, he was already a 
better painter than his master. And this mastery he 
won by studying the work of Giotto himself. So he 
came to be more truly the pupil of Giotto than those 
who had had him for master, and at the close of the 
fourteenth century he was undoubtedly the greatest 




ALTAR-PIECE 
By Agjw/o Gaddi, i?i the Oratorio di S. Cateriita, near Antella 



ANTELLA 115 

painter then living. His pictures, fragments of his 
altar-pieces, are scattered in every gallery in Europe, 
and, judged by them, lovely though they be, he might 
seem a lesser painter than he is. It is by his frescoes 
we must judge him, and with his work in Arezzo, in 
Pisa, and at S. Miniato al Monte to choose from, it is, 
I think, here in this wayside chapel that to-day he is 
seen at his best. For by some miracle these frescoes 
have been preserved, while the rest have faded on the 
walls till they are but ghosts, shadows of themselves, 
which are passing away how surely under our eyes. 
And this being so, it might seem incumbent upon the 
Government to provide for the proper care of things at 
once so rare and so precious. At present, for some 
reason or other, not only is the chapel used as a tinaja, 
but dogs and turkeys and chickens are allowed to herd 
there, so that what was once a church is little better 
than a barn. Moreover, something should be done at 
once to save Spinello's work from the damp which will 
ere long utterly destroy it. And then proper attention 
to this most precious and lovely shrine, forgotten so un- 
accountably, would almost certainly lead to the dis- 
covery of other frescoes under the whitewash, at least 
behind the high altar, where even the passer-by can 
discern the shadowed outlines of a great Madonna. 
Such a loveliness as this chapel is not so common even 
in Tuscany that one can afford to neglect it. 

The road turns sharply to the right beside the chapel, 
dividing almost immediately into two branches, of 
which we choose that to the right. We follow it uphill 
where it winds past Villa Ronzi in a half circle to the 
left, and thence downhill to the right for about a mile 
till it passes under the beautiful hill of Baroncelli into 
the Via Vecchia Aretina at Bagno a Ripoli, whence we 
take tram for Florence. 



VII 

SIGNA, LASTRA A SIGNA, GANGALANDI, 
MALMANTILE, AND MONTELUPO 

SIGNA lies at the western extremity of the plain of 
Florence, on the hillside above the Arno, where 
the river begins to force its way through the nairow 
pass of the Gonfolina, after passing which, it flows across 
the plain of Empoli to Pisa and the sea. Starting early 
from Florence,^ a delightful day may be spent in ex- 
ploring not Signa only with her sisters Ponte a Signa 
and Gangalandi, but the hill country behind them too, 
those hills which form, as it were, the natural western 
boundary of the Florentine territory. 

Signa to-day is a little town that lies on the right 
bank of the Arno under the old Castello, joined by the 
famous bridge to the smaller town of Ponte a Signa 
on the Via Pisana, which joins Gangalandi, or, as it is 
now called, Lastra a Signa. Of these three places, the 
oldest is certainly the Castel di Signa, which crowns 
the hill on the northern side of the river. The origin 
of the name is uncertain, but Signa itself is very old, 

^ There is a train from the Stazione Centrale at 9.30 a.m. 
which runs to Signa in a quarter of an hour, and another at 
midday ; leaving Florence by either of these trains, one has 
plenty of time to see Signa and Gangalandi, and to walk to 
Montelupo across the hills by Malmantile, returning from Mon- 
telupo at 5.16 P.M., and reaching Florence at 5.52 p.m. If the 
earlier train be taken, one may well picnic at Malmantile. 
116 



SIGNA 117 

and whether you consider its position there at the 
meeting of two rivers, the Arno and the Bisenzio, 
one of them the greatest in Tuscany, or whether you 
only remind yourself that here before the twelfth cen- 
tury, as later too, was the one bridge that crossed the 
river between the city of Florence and the ciry of Pisa, 
it is easy to understand that Signa must always have 
been a place of some importance. In the summer, 
too, the Arno ceased to be navigable above Signa, and 
thus the place grew to be a sort of port or market for 
all the merchandise that passed between the two cities. 
Indeed, from the earliest times, Signa was famous, not 
only as a port, but as herself the workshop, as it were, 
where the bianchi steli di paglia, that pale Tuscan straw, 
were twisted or plaited, and made into hats, so that the 
Proposto Lastro, in his Cappello di Faglta, called the 
industry of the place the onor del Tosco regno, and in- 
deed she was the most populous Comunita in all the 
Grand Duchy. The most ancient records concerning 
her and her sisters, Ponte a Signa and Gangalandi, 
show her as part of the feudal dominion of the Conti 
Cadolinghi, those Conti Borgonuovo who, as we have 
seen, protected the Badia a Settimo, and who lived for 
the most part at Fucecchio, ruling thence in some sort 
a vast territory, which included all this part of Val 
d'Arno, even to the gates of Florence. To command 
the pass of the Gonfolina, they built and furnished two 
fortresses, one of which was on Monte Orlando, and 
the other on Monte Cascioli, a hill which rises, to-day 
crowned by a villa, just westward of Castel Pulci. In 
1 107, the Republic of Florence took and utterly de- 
stroyed Monte Orlando, and six years after, in spite of 
a most vigorous defence, it threw down the Rocca of 
Monte Cascioli also.^ Thus the whole of this district 

^Cf. G. Carocci, Comune di Lastra a Signa (Firenze, 1895), 
p. 23. 



ii8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

came into the power of Florence. In order to hold it, 
the Republic built two strong Castelli : one at Lastra 
a Gangalandi, close to an older and unimportant for- 
tress called till then Castelvecchio, a little more than 
half a mile to the north of the modern Lastra a Signa ; 
the other the Castello di Malmantile on the summit of 
the hills that commanded not only the Via Pisana, 
but in some sort too the pass of Gonfolina. 

For more than two hundred years after Signa thus 
came into the power of Florence, her story is concerned 
for the most part with merchandise and the prevention 
of floods, and the making and keeping of roads. The 
monks of the Badia a Settimo had certain rights on the 
left bank of the river, and they seem to have built 
sluices and locks there, which, instead of preventing 
floods, seem to have caused them. After the disaster 
<^f i333> when the whole plain was under water, by 
order of the Signoria, they were destroyed. 

A few years before that, however, Signa had on the 
30th September, 1325, become the camp of Castruccio 
Castracani, who took the Castello, and held the hills 
round about, ready to descend on Florence. On the 
25th of the following February, according to Villani,^ 
he burned Signa, and cutting the bridge near the Arno, 
left that part of the country, which he had overrun and 
burned up to the gates of Florence. Villani goes on 
to say 2 that " in the same year 1326, on the fourteenth 
day of September, the Florentines decided to rebuild 
and refortify both Signa and Gangalandi ; and so they 
did. And they made a wall about Signa with towers 
both strong and high, according immunity and favour 
to those terrazzani who should build houses there." 
As for Gangalandi, it seems to have been at this time 

1 Villani, Cronica, lib. ix., cap. 317, 338. 
^Ibid., lib. X., cap. 5. 



SIGNA 119 

that it became Lastra a Signa, for Repetti ^ tells us that 
the Florentines rebuilt it nearer to the Pieve di Signa, 
bringing it nearer, that is to say, to the Arno at the 
head of the great bridge. 

To-day the Castel di Signa consists of a few broken 
towers and an old wall with two battlemented gates 
that crown the hill above the modern town. These 
are the remains of the fortifications built by Florence 
in 1326. They were put to the proof some seventy 
years later, for while the Signoria was deliberating 
whether Florence should make war on Gian Galeazzo 
of Milan, some of his men-at-arms who were in Siena 
under Conte Alberigo fell suddenly upon the contado 
even to Signa, as Ammirato tells us,^ and having spoiled 
Lastra, they attacked Signa, without success, as it 
seems, for after two days they went away elsewhere. 

In 1380, the monks of Badia a Settimo, whose 
rights on the Arno had already been curtailed by the 
Signoria, also lost possession of the Porto di Signa,^ 
which they had held since the great plague of 1348. 
Indeed, the dazio of the port was worth a considerable 
sum of money, and the Republic seems to have called 
them to account for it. Scarcely anything more has 
come down to us of the story of this little castello at 
the head of the pass that led to Pisa. Its great days 
were over when all that part of Val d'Arno, at the final 
defeat of Pisa in 1406, came into the hands of Florence. 

And to-day there is little or nothing to see there ; 
her old church has been restored out of recognition ; 
if she once possessed v/orks of art, she has lost or sold 
them, and indeed that steep hill would be scarcely 
worth the climb if it were not for that beautiful loggia 
with its old columns in the great Piazza, and the ruins 

1 Repetti, of. cit., vol. v., p. 402. 

2 Ammirato, Storia Florentina, lib. xvi. 

^ This was some two miles down the river. 



I20 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

on the hill-top. And yet we must not forget Beata 
Giovanna, that little shepherdess who became a 
nun. For her sake, even yet, every year, on the 
Monday in Easter week, children ride on asses up 
the wide nave of S. Maria to the high altar, making 
an offering of oil. 

Whether Beata Giovanna was born in the Castello of 
Signa or not is uncertain ; at any rate she lived there, 
and thus she is rightly called La Beata di Signa. " The 
most trustworthy notice of the life and deeds of this 
glorious heroine of Paradise," says Brocchi, " is found 
in an ancient manuscript that is conserved in the Pieve 
of Signa, where her holy body rests in a chapel dedi- 
cated to her. The manuscript was written at the end 
of the fourteenth century, that is to say some eighty 
years after her death, which happened as seems certain 
in 1307. Certain lives written later tell us that she be- 
longed to the Franciscan Order, or the Augustinian or 
the Carmelite or the Vallombrosan, but indeed she 
was of none of them, but a Secular Hermit — una 
secolare Romita." She was born about 1266, and 
her parents were just country-folk, labourers who pos- 
sessed a few sheep which presently Vanna was set to 
keep on the hills about S. Romolo a Signa towards 
Malmantile ; and indeed as the people say under an 
oak there in the properties of the Signori Altoviti she 
and her sheep took shelter in time of rain. While she 
was still a child God was pleased to show Himself in 
her, so that one day of flood when Arno was raging 
she crossed dry-shod when not even a boat dare put 
out from land, spreading her mantle on the waters 
and crossing freely as in the safest ship to the other 
bank. And on this miracle Andrea Stefani made a 
/auda which I shall give at last. 

In other prodigies too our Lord manifested her 
sanctity ; so that when with other shepherds she was 



SIGNA 121 

feeding her sheep, being overtaken by a tempest of 
hail and rain, she called them swiftly to her and 
making the sign of the cross over them and their 
beasts saved them all, for not one perished, nor were 
they so much as wetted in all that tempest. Perhaps 
she took refuge with them under the oak whose 
branches were as it is said 144 braccia round about 
and 22 braccia high. Certainly she loved it well, so 
that when the Altoviti would cut it down she wept 
and would not.be comforted, saying it was blessed. 
Yet he who was about this business in spite of her 
tears had no shame. " Blessed or not," said he, " I 
will cut it down." But as he lifted the axe, he fell to 
the ground not without hurt. 

And having come to the age of thirteen years, she 
desired above all things to be loved of God and to 
serve Him as she might, so she sought out a little 
cave on the hillside above Signa and there she hid 
herself : there too in later years they built her oratory, 
as you may see not far from the bridge where the 
hills rise towards the Castello. There she prayed 
and watched and mortified her body for the greater 
glory of God. 

About this time as it happened a woman of the 
contorni of Signa had taken a child to suckle it, and 
although she certainly used all diligence as it seems, 
the child would not thrive but came to die. She was 
in despair, not so much for the loss of the child as 
she said, but that she must render count of it to its 
parents, who were most jealous of it. At last seeing 
no remedy, she carried herself and the dead child to 
their house. And as she went crying and bemoaning 
she passed the cave of Beata Vanna, who hearing her 
weeping called her and asked why she wept so bitterly. 
Then she showed her the dead boy and said no more. 
And Vanna, greatly moved, taking the little one in her 



122 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

arms, suspiciens in coelum, ingemuit spiritu^ gave it life 
and returned it to the nurse, who filled with joy re- 
turned happily to her house, magnifying God who by 
means of Beata Vanna had deigned to work so great 
a miracle. 

There was Madonna Ciava too, the wife of Donico 
da Signa, in whose property the cave of Beata Vanna 
was. One morning she baked a cake and taking a 
portion of it carried it for charity to Beata, then not 
long after when her husband returned she went to 
take that which remained to him, but to her great sur- 
prise found the cake whole as though she had cut 
none of it. Thinking maybe after all she had not 
taken any to Vanna she spoke to her of it, who 
begged her not to speak to any of this thing ; but it 
got abroad, and ever the more grew among the people 
a veneration for the Beata. And other things more 
wonderful still befell, such as that which happened 
to the little son of Madonna Saffetta who was healed 
of a gangrene in his foot, or to the little Lapo, six 
years old, son of Madonna Ricca, whom she healed 
with the words, " Go in Peace, and the Lord be with 
thee ". And there were yet others, for her pity was 
ever with children. 

How long she lived in her hermitage is uncertain, 
but she seems to have stayed there for twenty-five 
years, that is to say during her whole life since her 
fourteenth year. She died of plague on the 9th 
November, 1307. 

In 1706 it seems that the captains of the Com- 
pagnia dell' Insigna Oratoria di Or S. Michele in 
Florence sent her a certain amount of money for 
charity, and this would prove that she was not of any 
Order, for the Friars especially were at war with that 
company.! 

1 See Villani, Cronica^ lib, vii., cap. 155. 



SIGNA 123 

In her last illness a certain Mona Nuta had nursed 
and assisted her, and a little after, this good soul being 
ill herself, Beata appeared to her one night when she 
could not sleep and asked her if she recognised her. 
" No," replied the poor woman. " I am Giovanna. 
Thou faithfully servedst me in my infirmity, lo, here I 
am come to do the like for thee. Show me what ails 
thee." Nuta showed a pestiferous carbuncle, and 
Beata touched it with her holy hands and restored 
her in an instant to perfect sanity. And truly, since 
she died of the pest, it was against that she was com- 
monly invoked. 

When she died all the bells of Signa and of the 
country places round about rang joyfully of them- 
selves, without human aid, giving signs of her happy 
passage to Paradise. After her death the Priore of S. 
Martino a Gangalandi claimed her body, declaring 
that she was probably born in his parish where truly 
some of her childhood was spent ; yet for the most 
part she had lived in Signa and certainly she died 
there. However, the Ordinary of Florence favoured 
the claim of the Priore of S. Martino. He with his 
people then came joyfully to take this holy body, hav- 
ing ordered for this purpose- a procession. The Lord 
God, however, who did not wish those of Gangalandi 
to possess so great a treasure, but rather that the Beata 
should lie in Signa, manifested His will by a miracle. 
For scarcely had the procession with the litter 
reached the midst of the bridge (where the jurisdic- 
tion of the curate of Gangalandi began) when all 
came to a stand, nor, try how they would, could they 
move forward a single step. So they returned more 
sad than they had come out. Not yet satisfied, how- 
ever, one of them cut off in his indiscreet devotion an 
arm from the holy body, but when he came to the 
midst of the bridge he was suddenly blind ; and the 



124 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

arm even to-day may be seen in the Pieve of Signa in 
a crystal vase ornamented with jewels and rings and 
exposed every year to public veneration on the 
Monday in Easter week. 

Thus the festa of Beata Vanna came to be cele- 
brated every year on the 9th November, the day of 
her death, and on the Monday in the week of Easter. <?» 
And this is the song Era Andrea Stefani made in her 
honour : — 

Ave Virgo Gloriosa, 
O Giovanna a Dio benigna, 
Che del bel Castel di Signa 
Fusti eletta Virgo e sposa. 

Ave Virgo Gloriosa. 

Tu beata essendo in terra 
Colla tua santa orazione 
Gli animali, e le persone 
Gia salvasti dalla guerra, 
Or ch' il Ciel tua alma serra 
Per noi prega graziosa. 

Ave Virgo Gloriosa. 

Tu il fanciuUo suscitasti 
Alia Balia, che affogato 
Se r avea trovato allato, 
Nella braccia lo pigliasti ; 
Come pel bambin pregasti, 
Prega Dio, che ci dia posa. 
Ave Virgo Gloriosa. 



Tu facesti la stiacciata 
Ritornare intera, e sana 
A cui un pezzo con sua mana 
La Padrona aveva data ; 
Poiche sei nel Ciel beata, 
Pasci noi o preziosa. 

Ave Virgo Gloriosa. 

Tu passasti, essendo grosso 
II fium' Arno in sul Mantello 
Per virtu del puro Agnello, 



SIGN A 125 

Tieni a noi tua mano addosso, 
Se pregar di cio ti posso 
Fa nostr' alma gloriosa. 

Ave Virgo Gloriosa. 

Tu facesti ancor sonare 
Le campane tutte a morto. 
Gangalandi, Signa, e il Porto 
In facesti stupefare, 
Non vedendo allor toccare 
Le lor funi, o altra cosa. 

Ave Virgo Gloriosa. 

It was, I think, in the fourteenth century that the 
Contrada of Signa was divided into three Communes, 
namely, that of Signa, that of Lastra, and that of 
Gangalandi. To reach these two latter, you must 
cross the Arno by the great bridge, which, as we have 
seen, Castruccio destroyed. 

It was, as Puccinelli tells us, in his Memorie Storiche 
di Peseta,^ S. Alluccio, an ospitaliere pesciatino, who, 
about 1 120, obtained leave from the Bishop of Flor- 
ence to build for the benefit of the poveri viandati — 
poor wanderers surely — indeed, our very selves — a 
bridge over the Arno within the confines of the diocese 
of Florence below the city. In 1252 the Cistercians 
of Badia a Settimo on the nth of August obtained 
permission to build on the left bank of the Arno in 
the place then called the Mercatale di Signa, a pescaja 
di guinchetto — a sluice made of rushes — even to the 
half of the river, for the sake of some mills that the 
Badia possessed thereabout under Gangalandi. The 
same document that tells us this, speaks of the bridge 
which already stood there. Almost certainly of wood, 
it was already ruined in 1278, when the baptismal 
font was placed in S. Martino a Gangalandi, because 
the way across the river was interrupted. A new 

^C/. Repetti, op. cit., vol. iv., p. 524. 



126 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

bridge was built in 1287, and it was this which 
Castruccio destroyed on the 28th February, 1326. 
When the Florentines rebuilt the Castel di Signa, they 
also rebuilt the bridge with a tower. This was pro- 
bably cut and ruined by Sir John Hawkwood when in 
1364 he drove the Florentines down Val di Nievole, 
and encamped at Peretola. However that may be, it 
was rebuilt in 1405, and again in 1479, because the 
little arches of the bridge built in 1405 would not let 
the boats through. It is across this bridge, enlarged 
and in great part rebuilt in 1836, that we go into the 
Castel lo of Lastra. 

Lastra a Signa, or, as it was called in old times, 
Gangalandi, was at first a simple borgo, as we have 
seen ; ^ but after the Pisans, with the White Company 
under Sir John Hawkwood in 1264^ had destroyed 
the place, the Florentine Republic in 1380 rebuilt it, 
and walled it in with towers and ditches too, to defend 
the Via Pisana. To-day you may see the splendid 
and beautiful remains of these walls and fortifications, 
which, as it is said, Filippo Brunelleschi built for the 
Republic, if, passing through the little town of Ponte 
a Signa at the bridge head, you turn to the left into 
Lastra, and, walking round the castello under the old 
walls, come out at last before the great Porta Fioren- 
tina, great enough for a city. Entering the Castello 
by this gate, you pass in Corso Vittorio Emanuele the 
Oratorio di S. Maria della Misericordia, rebuilt in 1404; 
but from that time, only the door is left, all the rest of 
the building having been quite modernised. Over the 
high altar, however, is a fine picture of the Madonna 
with our Lord, of the thirteenth century. In the Via 

'^ Supra, p. 118. 

2 For a full account of this affair, and the whole campaign, 
with an account of the White Company of Englishmen and its 
leader, see my Florence and Northern Tuscany, p, g8 et seq. 




LASTRA A SIGNA 



S. MARTINO A GANGALANDI 127 

della Pretura stands the Loggia di S. Antonio, a 
beautiful building of the fifteenth century, and over the 
door of an oratory there in a lunette is a fresco, a 
fifteenth century work by some pupil of Bicci di Lor- 
enzo perhaps, representing Madonna with Bambino 
Gesu between two angels. There is little else of any 
interest within the castello ; but if, returning a little 
on your way, towards Ponte a Signa, you take the 
road to your left under a great ilex that covers all the 
road, you will come to the Church of S. Martino a 
Gangalandi, that, beyond everything else in this neigh- 
bourhood, is worth a visit. 

Gangalandi, to-day just a delicious village, was from 
very ancient times the stronghold of the counts of 
that name, who, as Repetti thinks, were viscounts of 
the Cadolinghi, or at least of that company that called 
themselves Cattani in Lombardy, a thousand of whom 
were ennobled by the great Marchese Ugo, among 
them certainly the Gangalandi.^ That the Counts of 
Borgonuovo dominated this part of Tuscany we have 
already seen, and when in 11 07 Conte Ugo, the last 
of the Cadolinghi, was broken by the Commune, and 
his Castello of Monte Orlando destroyed, the Ganga- 
landi seem to have been already dragged into the city, 
where we find them in Oltrarno as early as 1040, ac- 
cording to Villani, who speaks of them later as Ghi- 
bellines.2 

The Church of S. Martino a Gangalandi is not much 
less ancient than the counts. It was originally within 
the Pieve of S, Maria a Signa, but, as I have said, in 
1278, after the destruction of the bridge across Arno, 
it was permitted to possess a baptistery, thus winning a 
certain independence, though it is still within the same 
piviere. The most ancient document we possess, how- 

^ Villani, Cronica, lib. iv., cap. 2 and 13. 
^Ibid., lib. v., cap. 39. 



128 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

ever, concerning S. Martino is of the year no8. It 
seems that in that year a certain Bernardo di Adimaro, 
and other magnati, having for a considerable time dis- 
sipated the wealth of the parishes of S. Martino and S. 
Michele, another church at Gangalandi, " for the good 
of their souls," thought to restore what they had taken. 
By the counsel of Ranieri, Bishop of Florence, and of 
Peter, Archdeacon of the Duomo, it was decided to 
unite the administration of the two churches under a 
Priore, so that a canonica was built, with a cloister, 
presso la ripa del castel di Gangalandi. The church 
of S. Michele seems to have hQQn 3i parrochia till 1648, 
when the Franciscan Osservanti obtained it, and built 
the present convent. The Church of S. Martino, on 
the other hand, had, certainly from iiii, a chapter 
and canons living in common under a superior. No- 
thing of any great interest to us seems to have befallen 
till 1466, when Leon Battista Alberti enjoyed the Pro- 
positura, the provostship, of the church, with the title of 
rector, and it was probably under his direction that the 
beautiful chancel we see to-day was built. 

Save the choir and the portico of the baptistery 
to the right in the nave, the church is to-day a building 
of the sixteenth century ; the fourteenth century fresco 
under the portico without, of S. Cristofano with the 
Child Jesus on his shoulder, having been saved from 
the older church it might seem, with the baptistery itself 
against which it is painted. 

The font so strangely won, stands under a loggia 
to the right in the nave, and is all painted in fresco by 
Bicci di Lorenzo after 1430.^ Above the arches on 
the north side is S. Martino dividing his cloak with a 
beggar, and under, the Annunciation, while over the 
arches on the east is the figure of our Lord surrounded 
by clouds of angels. Under the roof of the loggia, 

^ Carocci, Commie di Lastra a Signa, p. 10 and note. 



S. MARTINO A GANGALANDI 129 

Bicci has painted the four evangelists and the doctors 
of the church. Born in 1373, the son of Lorenzo di 
Bicci, Bicci di Lorenzo belonged to the school of the 
Daddi ; the best artist his family produced, he was the 
father of Neri di Bicci whose numerous works litter 
Tuscany.i The font itself is worthy of attention. It 
is a work of the fifteenth century, as the inscription 
tells us : Questa fonte anno facto fare gli operai delta 
Compagnia della Vergine Maria, An. mccccxxiii. ; 
and the bas-reliefs, from different hands it might seem, 
represent S. Michele Arcangiolo, the Baptism of our 
Lord, S. Martin giving away part of his cloak, the Ma- 
donna and Child, and our Lord as a pilgrim. 

Over the second altar to the left in the nave, beside 
which is the tomb of old Agnolo Pandolfini, is a pic- 
ture of the sixteenth century in the manner of Bronzino, 
representing the Holy Virgins. It is a fine canvas, and 
the figures are certainly portraits. Over the altar, 
next to it, is a picture of Madonna enthroned with our 
Lord, and about her S. Stephen and another saint ; 
an early sixteenth century work in the manner of 
Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. 

The two treasures of the church, however, are on 
the walls on either side the high altar. On the north 
wall are two panels, where, on a gold ground, some 
painter of the trecento has painted the Annuncia- 
tion. Miracles of beauty, these two little paintings 
seem to me the loveliest things in the church. Yet 
that Madonna, painted by some Florentine master of 
the fifteenth century, now on the southern wall of the 
chancel here, is certainly a surprising and wonderful 
thing, made on some fortunate day, perhaps, by Bot- 
ticini. Under, are the arms of the Conti Gangalandi. 

From the terrace before the church a beautiful view 

^ A tabernacle by him is in the Church of S. Maria delle 
Salve, above Ponte a Signa, 

9 



I30 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of the Val d'Arno opens before you to the Duomo of 
Florence far away eastward, and the hills above the 
city. Northward you may spy out Prato, while, just 
across the river, Signa, piled on her hill, is almost lost 
in the olive gardens, and, nearer still, the great Strozzi 
villa, Villa delle Selve, looks across the vineyards to 
the valley and the hills. 

But we have spent enough time within doors this 
summer morning : it is necessary to set out where the 
road leads to Malmantile on the hills, to Montelupo 
at the head of Val di Pesa. 

Returning to Lastra, you follow the tram line till 
suddenly a paved road ^ turns southward to the right 
under S. Lucia, the old parish church of S. Michele, 
now a convent. Winding up this valley beside a tor- 
rent at first between the olive gardens, you presently 
come into a more naked land, and, keeping to the 
right at the second turning, in some three miles you see 
before you on the hill-top the great castello of Malman- 
tile, utterly ruined now.^ 

It was somewhere about the middle of the twelfth cen- 
tury that the Florentines built the Castello of Malman- 
tile. Documents, however, are wanting concerning it 
at that time, the earliest Repetti has been able to find 
being of the year 1247, and even that it seems pos- 
sible to refer to another Malmantile in Chianti. The 

1 This road is the ancient strada maestra e postale between 
Florence and Pisa, and was used certainly when Malmantile was 
built to hold it, before the later, but yet ancient Via Pisana was 
built. 

2 If you care enough for such things, and I confess at once I 
do, you may take the first turn to the right about two miles 
after leaving Lastra, and so come to Lecceto. The church of 
SS. Jacopo and Filippo there has a strange altar-piece painted 
by many hands. In the midst, however, is a Madonna and 
Child by some Giottesque painter. The greater part of this 
altar piece is fifteenth century work. 



MALMANTILE 131 

Castello as we now see it was built in 1424, and it fur- 
nishes a very good example of what a Castello was ; not 
a castle or even a fortress, but a walled and fortified 
village. Sometimes these Castelli were gathered round 
the Rocca or Castle of some lord, as at Campiglia 
d'Orcia, sometimes they were built close to an abbey, 
under whose jurisdiction and protection they were, at 
first certainly, as at Abbadia San Salvatore in Mont' 
Amiata,^ but often too, as at S. Eraclio and S. Gia- 
como in the Valley of Spoleto, they were just strong 
walled villages capable of resisting a siege by the robber 
nobles of the neighbourhood and entirely secure from 
surprise. 

Here at Malmantile you may enter the Castello by 
one gate and walk right through the village to the 
gate on the west. There the whole plain of Empoli 
spreads itself before you even to the sea. Due east on 
her hill-top the ruined tower of the Rocca of S. Miniato- 
al-Tedesco stands ; opposite, across the river, Fucecchio 
is heaped on her hill, while away and away the great 
marble mountains of Carrara rise, those beautiful strange 
peaks of the Apuan Alps, while nearer, like an island 
in the plain, stand the Monti Pisani. 

Perche i Pisani veder Lucca non ponno. 

To the south lies Monte Albano, that huge uplifted 
horn on whose side Vinci and Artimino stand, and to 
the south across the rolling plain you may see S. Casciano 
and nearer Villa del Corno of the Strozzi, and again 
Tavarnelle, and at sunset, if you should be fortunate, 
S. Gimignano delle Belle Torri. There, in the shadow 
of the olives, under the old wall, it is good to rest and 
eat the golden-coloured bread and drink the red wine 

^See on this subject of the Castello, In Unknown Tuscany, 
by Edward Hutton, with notes by William Heywood. [In the 
press.] 



132 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of that poor place. There, too, you may well read the 
fantastic verses of Lorenzo Lippi, poet and buffoon, 
who, making fun of Tasso the sentimentalist, wrote 
instead of Gerusakmme Conquistata, Malmafttile Rac- 
quisiato. Malmantile in his allegory meaning, as 
indeed it does, la cattiva tovaglia da tavola, the " dirty 
table-cloth ". And so what immortality Malmantile 
may enjoy to-day comes to it from the excellent, merry 
verses of that would-be painter.^ 

Just to the westward under the hill on which Mal- 
mantile stands, is the parish church S. Pietro al Mal- 
mantile or in Selva far enough away from the Castello. 
It is well worth a visit and is not more than a hundred 
yards from the road we must follow to Montelupo. 
Of very ancient foundation, the present building is 
quite modern, yet on the fa9ade under the portico you 
will find frescoes of the fourteenth century representing 
S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, S. Augustine, S. 
Ambrose and S. Cristofano with Christ on his shoulder. 
And then within the church is one of those beautiful 
Giottesque crucifixes such as I found at Ruballa, 
which, more than any other form or thing, seem to re- 
call for me the Christian centuries. And in themselves 
they are among the most lovely Italian works of the 
Middle Age. Other paintings, too, later and less sincere 
than these, you will find at S. Pietro, but nothing else 
to compare with that wonderful cross of some pupil of 
Giotto. 

The road by which one comes to Malmantile from 
Lastra, runs past the Castello under its northern walls 

1 For all concerning Lorenzo Lippi, consult A. Neri, Passa- 
tempi Letterari {Genoa, 1888). Lorenzo Lippi was born in 
Florence in 1606. Invited to Innsbruck by the Archduchess 
Claudia, he remained there till her death, when he returned to 
Florence, having set out to be a painter, finding himself a poet. 
He died in 1664, and was buried in the tomb of his family in S. 
Maria Novella. 



THE GONFOLINA PASS 133 

and follows across the hills to Montelupo. Of the 
views by the way I say nothing — who may well describe 
them ; and indeed any description would be futile since 
if you follow the road you may see for yourself. 

It is something under four miles from Malmantile 
to Montelupo ; the road passes over the hills above 
the Arno, now and again you get a glimpse of the 
winding valley, sometimes you can only see the hills. 
Then suddenly at a turning of the way the tower of 
the old Rocca of Montelupo comes in sight, set on its 
hill where the Pesa passes into the Arno on the way 
to the sea. Resting in the shadow of that ancient 
tower looking over the river where it bends round the 
great Medici villa of Ambrogiana, or flows swiftly under 
the towering Castello of Capraja, on the farther bank of 
the stream, we may well remind ourselves of the his- 
tory of these fortresses. 

If it was the Cadolinghi and the Gangalandi who 
held the eastern gate of the pass of the Gonfolina, it 
was the Counts of Capraja who held the western gate, 
till in 1203 Florence took it from them. Long and 
long before that, however, Capraja stood holding the 
pass against any. No doubt these Counts, Alberti 
they were, gave trouble enough to the Florentines, so 
that at last they said, as the tale goes, 

Per distrugger questa Capra 
Non ci vuol altro che un Lupo, 

"to destroy this goat, nothing is needed but a wolf," 
so they built Montelupo, and taking Capraja, perhaps 
because they already had a fortress on the left bank of 
Arno at Malmantile, they abandoned Montelupo and 
established Capraja as one of their forts. Then 
Montelapo seems to have got out of hand so that 
it became necessary to destroy it. " In the year of 
Christ 1203," says Villani in his simple way, "when 



134 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Brunellino Brunelli de' Razzanti was consul in Florence 
with his colleagues, the Florentines destroyed the Cas- 
tello of Montelupo, because it would not obey the 
Comune." ^ Nevertheless it was for Capraja was re- 
served the more dreadful vengeance. It fell, according 
to Villani, in 1249, when Conte Rodolfo gave asylum in 
his Rocca of Capraja to the heads of the Guelf party, 
who fled from Florence, and therefore Federigo IL 
and the Ghibellines laid siege to the place. 

Now Federigo had been in Lombardy, but in the 
spring of 1249 he came south into Tuscany, leaving 
his natural son Enzo, King of Sardinia, with many horse- 
men as his vicar-general over the Lombard League. 
When he arrived at S. Miniato-al-Tedesco he found 
that the Ghibelline party, which was then ruling the 
city of Florence, had laid siege in the month of March 
to the fortress of Capraja, wherein were the leaders of 
the chief families of Guelf nobles exiled from Florence, 
as I have said. Then, says Villani, " the Emperor 
would not enter into the city of Florence, nor ever had 
he entered therein but avoided it, for the soothsayers 
or some devil had told him that he would die in Flor- 
ence and therefore he feared greatly. Nevertheless he 
came to the army, and went to sojourn in the Castello 
of Fucecchio and left the greater part of his followers 
at the siege of Capraja, which stronghold being tight 
held, and having very scanty provisions, was not able 
to last out longer ; so the besieged took counsel to- 
gether as to whether they should parley, and they 
would have been granted any liberal terms which they 
desired ; but a certain shoemaker, an exile from Flor- 
ence who had been a leading Ancient, not being 
invited to the said Council, came to the gate very angry 
and cried to the host that the town could hold out no 

^Villani, Cronica, lib. v., cap. 31. 



MONTELUPO 13s 

longer, so that they would not consent to treat. Where- 
fore those within, as dead men, surrendered themselves 
to the mercy of the Emperor. And this was in the 
month of May in the year of Christ 1249. And the 
captains of the said Guelfs were Count Ridolfo of 
Capraja and Messer Rinieri Zingane of the Buon- 
delmonti. And when they came to Fucecchio to the 
Emperor he took them all with him prisoners to 
Apulia ; and afterwards by reason of letters and am- 
bassadors sent to him by the Ghibellines of Florence 
he put out the eyes of all which belonged to the great 
noble families in Florence and then drowned them in 
the sea, save Messer Rinieri Zingane, because he found 
him so wise and great of soul that he would not put 
him to death, but he put out his eyes, who afterwards 
ended his life as a monk in the island of Monte Cristo. 
And the aforesaid shoemaker was spared by the be- 
siegers ; and when the Guelfs returned to Florence he 
also returned thither, and being recognised in the 
parliament, at the outcry of the people he was stoned 
and vilely dragged along the ground by the children, 
and thrown into the moat." ^ 

That, and the affair of Pier della Vigna, might seem 
to be sufficient answer to those who in their blind hatred 
of the Holy See have chosen even this wild beast for 
praise. So Federigo dealt with all who were against 
him. The Pope called him anti-christ and broke him. 
Therefore, and truly, where he was hell seems to have 
gathered itself together, about the cruelty of his heart. 
With him, in spite of a host of shadows, one may truly 
say the farce of the Empire came to an end in Italy. 

Though there is nothing to see in Capraja, and little 
in Montelupo, there is one picture in the Church of 
S. Giovanni Evangelista there, that church which till 

^Villani, Cronica, lib. vi., cap. 35. 



136 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

1796 was the old Dominican ospizio, which is worth 
all the journey you have made. Of old it stood over 
the altar in the Priory of the Rocca, but now it is in 
the south aisle of this, the Pieve of Montelupo. 

It is not any new vision of Madonna that some pupil 
of Botticelli has painted for that quiet country church, 
but the same half- weary maiden of whom Sandro has 
told us so often, whose honour is too great for her, 
whose destiny is more than she can bear. Already she 
has been overwhelmed by our praise and petitions ; 
she has closed her eyes, she has turned away her head, 
and while the Jesus Parvulus lifts His tiny hands in 
blessing, she is indifferent, holding Him languidly as 
though but half-attentive to those priceless words which 
S. John, with the last light of a smile still lingering 
round his eyes, notes so carefully in his book. Some- 
thing of the same eagerness, graver, and more youthful, 
you may see in the figure of S. Sebastian, who, holding 
three arrows daintily in his hand, has suddenly looked 
up at the sound of that divine childish voice. Two 
other figures, S. Lorenzo 'and S. Roch, listen with a sort 
of intent sadness there under that splendid portico, 
where Mary sits on a throne, she who was the carpen- 
ter's wife, with so little joy or even surprise. Below 
in the gradino, you may see certain saints' heads,^ 
with dancing satyrs between them, S. Lorenzo giving 
alms and his martyrdom too, and in the midst the Risen 
Christ. Nor after all is this the only treasure of the 
church, for behind the high altar there is a beautiful 
Giottesque Coronation of the Virgin amid a crowd of 
saints and angels. 

Coming out of S. Giovanni Evangelista and wander- 
ing down to the river, perhaps past the workshops 
whose pottery was once so famous, so that when all 

^ S. Buonaventura, S. Francesco, S. Jerome and two others. 





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MADONNA AND CHILD 
Frofn tJiepicUire of the School of Botticelli, in the Cluirch of S. Giovanni, at Monteliipo 



MONTELUPO 137 

the world knew some secret thing it was said, jE" 
scritta nei boccali di Monte lupo, "it is written on the 
jugs of Montelupo," you see not far away beside the 
river, caught as it were in the crook of its arm, the Villa 
deir Ambrogiana, a favourite residence of Ferdinando 
de' Medici, who came there several times each year 
for the hunting.^ It is a great square building with 
a tower at each corner and was built and used by 
Ferdinando for other purposes besides that of a 
hunting lodge. For in 1592 in October, Donna 
Eleonora Orsini, Ferdinando's niece, was married 
there to the Duke of Segni, Conte Federigo Sforza, 
and after the wedding a banquet was spread in the 
great hall served by pages dressed " in white satin, 
with Spanish cloaks of red velvet embroidered in gold 
with the Medici arms, and collars of fine lace ; four 
negroes in rich oriental costume handed the dishes, and 
the servants who waited on the other guests, seated at 
small tables round the hall, wore sky-blue liveries 
trimmed with gold lace and a short sword at their 
sides ". In October again in the year 1600, Maria de' 
Medici, leaving Florence to become the bride of France, 
stayed awhile at the Ambrogiana on her way. And 
then in 1791, it was here that Ferdinando III. met 
his bride, Luisa Maria of Bourbon. But those days 
come no more. The woods where Ferdinando 
hunted have long ago been cut down, and the Villa 
deir Ambrogiana is become a madhouse. 

1 For a full account of this villa, see Janet Ross, Florentine 
Villas (Dent, 1905), p. 88 et seq. 



VIII 

THE CERTOSA, POZZOLATICO, S. GERSOLE, 
S. GIUSTO, S. MARGHERITA A MONTICI, 
TORRE DEL GALLO, POGGIO IMPERI- 
ALE, S. MINIATO AL MONTE 

THE Certosa di Val d'Ema ^ stands on a hill to 
the right of the Via Romana about a mile to the 
southward of Galluzzo. You catch sight of it soon 
after you leave Le Due Strade, set on the top of its 
beautiful hill, Montacuto, like some great cas/ello, or 
fortress perhaps, a fortress that lies fallen, alas, before 
the armies of greed and hatred. If you come by tram 
to this sad, delicious place, you follow Via Romana all 
the way, through the suburbs of Le Due Strade and 
Galluzzo, but if you drive or walk thither you may go 
by the country road through the vineyards and the 
corn scattered with irises, hedged with roses, till al- 
most under the monastery you turn at last into the 
Roman Way, climbing the hill out of Galluzzo quite 
past the monastery, till, turning suddenly to the right, 
the road up Montacuto itself is before you ; that steep 
way where the beggars linger still all day long in the 
shadow and the few monks, interlopers now m their 
own house, wait to give you the ghost of a welcome. 

1 A tram leaves the Mercato Nuovo every twenty minutes 
from 6.35 A.M. to 8.15 P.M. for the Certosa, and one returns 
thence every twenty minutes from 7. 11 a.m. to 8. 11 p.m. 

138 



THE CERTOSA 139 

It was Niccolo Acciajuoli, Gran Siniscalco of Queen 
Giovanna of Naples, who founded the place in 1341, 
Orcagna, as it is said, building it for him not without 
magnificence. In that year at any rate the Priori 
of the Certosa of Bologna and of that of Maggiano 
in the Sanese took possession of Montacuto and of all 
those lands which Niccolo Acciajuoli had given to the 
new monastery. Yet his intention does not seem to 
have been to found merely another monastery for 
Religious ; he himself directed the building, and we 
find him eager to place within these strong walls, four- 
square on the hill-top, not only a church, a chapter- 
house, a sacristy and several cloisters with dwellings for 
monks and brethren, guest houses and indeed all the 
necessities of a monastery, but a great school also, a 
school for fifty boys where they might be taught the 
liberal arts, that more human learning which was just 
then coming into the world. Niccolo, however, died 
too soon to carry qut his dream, and at his death, the 
monastery being left without money, the school came to 
nothing, and the library of precious manuscripts which 
he had founded there little by little was scattered 
again. And this might seem one of the greatest mis- 
fortunes, not for Florence alone, but for all Italy, that 
when the monasteries were suppressed they were not 
put to the use of schools as they were in more than 
one case in England. A really great public school 
might well have arisen on this hill in this Carthusian 
Convent, an Italian Charterhouse, where carrying out 
the intention of the founder and generously expand- 
ing it, the Italian Government, in our time at any rate, 
might have founded one of those splendid institu- 
tions which Italy so sadly needs. Any such achieve- 
ment, however, might seem impossible among a 
people the least public-spirited in the world, where no 
public service is above reproach, no politician above sus- 



140 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

spicion, where even as I write the moneys subscribed 
for the outcasts of Calabria have mysteriously dis- 
appeared in the hands of those who, without honour, 
without patriotism, without energy or faith, have made 
of modern Italy the hopeless abomination which we 
see. 

The great gate of the monastery stands open at the 
top of the hill ; entering there and turning to the right 
another gate stands before a great stone staircase which 
leads into a beautiful court, built at the end of the 
sixteenth century ; and indeed to-day there is but little 
left save the fortifications dating from 1349 of the 
work which Orcagna may have built or designed ; the 
monastery as we see it being work, for the most part, 
of the late sixteenth century with the additions of a 
later time. 

Out of this great court you pass directly into the 
church, not, however, without visiting the little chapel 
of the travellers where there still remains a Holy 
Family by Andrea del Sarto. 

The church, consecrated in 1369, but as we see 
it a building of the sixteenth century, is divided into 
two choirs, one for the clergy and one for laymen. 
The stalls in the first are late sixteenth century work, 
and the fresco over the high altar is the death of S. 
Bruno, a work by Poccetti; Giambologna is said to 
have cast the bronze statues about the pyx there. 
However that may be, it is not in such baroque work 
„as this, that we shall to-day take delight, but perhaps 
in the great chapel on the right which is said to have 
been built by Orcagna where are several much re- 
painted works of the Giottesques ; and in the chapel 
in the crypt, where the beautiful tombs of the Acciaj- 
uoli still make part of the pavement. They too are 
said to be the work of Orcagna, and certainly date 
from his time. There, about Niccolo, the founder, dead 




CERTOSA DI VAL D EMA 



THE CERTOSA 141 

in 1366, lie Lorenzo his son, who died before him in 
1353 in Naples, and whose ashes were brought here, 
not without splendour ; Acciajuolo his father, and Lapa 
his sister, the wife of Manente Buondelmonte : beside 
them, too, lies Donato Acciajuoli, the humanist, who 
died in Milan in 1478, for whom Poliziano himself, 
as it is said, wrote an epitaph. In the neighbouring 
Chapel of S. Andrea lies another member of that great 
house. Cardinal Agnolo Acciajuoli, dead in 1409, and 
his tomb, so they say, is the work of Donatello — 
Donatello or his pupils, yet it seems without the energy 
of that great master. 

From the church you pass into the great cloister, 
that beautiful place for which, as they say, Michelangelo 
designed the well-head, and the della Robbia carved 
and painted sixty-seven medallions with heads of 
prophets and saints, twenty of which seem to be the 
work of Giovanni himself.^ While in the great hall 
of the capitolo, behind the altar, you may see the best 
work of Mariotto Albertinelli, painted in 1504 and 
signed too — the Crucifixion of our Lord — and that is 
perhaps the finest picture the convent still possesses. 
For indeed the Certosa di Val d'Ema is no longer rich 
in pictures or in sculptures. It is not for their sakes 
we are come here, but for the sake of the place itself, 
its quietness and beauty, there on its hill between the 
Ema and the Greve. So as you pass from one cell 
to another, each consisting of three little chambers, 
and each with its marvellous view, it is of the country 
you are thinking all the time, those hills and valleys 
and olive gardens which as seen from here seem to 
possess a new beauty and serenity. And at last, still 
thinking perhaps of that view towards Florence over 
Val d'Ema, you pass almost heedlessly through the 

^ Maud Cruttwell, Liica and Andrea della Robbia, and their 
successors (Dent, 1902), p. 343. 



142 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

apartments where Charles V. stayed, where Pius VI. 
was really a prisoner, where Pius VIL sojourned too, 
into the Farmacia, where you may buy chocolate, and 
perfumes, and liqueurs, turning at last almost with 
relief out of this spoiled artificial place, a "national 
monument " truly which Italy has not known how to 
use, to the ever-living joy of the countryside, the hills 
and the roads and the ways of men. 

Returning to the Via Romana, and following it a 
few yards towards Florence, just over the brow of the 
hill, a road turns up on the right, Via di Parigi, wind- 
ing over those very hills towards Pozzolatico and the 
village of S. Gersole. By that way you pass up the 
valley of the Ema, but above it on the hills, and 
presently, as you come to the top of the hill. Villa 
Petrucci stands before you, a little to the left on the 
way. Then the road descends a little and you take 
the first turning to the right, passing in a few yards the 
little shrine by the wayside, Cappella de' Corbinelli, 
which still hides a beautiful fifteenth century relief of 
Madonna with Bambino Gesii in her arms, by some 
pupil maybe of Mino da Fiesole. In the distance on 
its high hill the Church of S. Pietro a Gersole stands 
before you, and then at the first cross road is the 
shrine of the Croce della Via with a fresco much 
damaged, by some fifteenth century painter, again of 
Madonna and her Son. Turning here to the right 
in a few minutes you find yourself before the Church 
of SS. Stefano e Caterina at Pozzolatico. 

Pozzolatico, or as it is sometimes called Poggio- 
latico, is a contrada whose history goes back at least 
to I02 2. The Church of S. Stefano once in the ptviere 
of the Impruneta, was in the thirteenth century in the 
patronage of the Bishops of Florence. It is to-day, 
however, in spite of its antiquity, mainly a building of 
the eighteenth century, its real interest lying not in 



S. GERSOLE 143 

itself, but in a picture which it happens to possess of 
Madonna and Child, painted on a gold ground by some 
follower of Giotto, a very beautiful thing ; while the 
ciborio in the chancel is a charming piece of sculpture 
of the fifteenth century. Such things scattered as they 
are with something of the infinity of wild flowers in 
Tuscany have, too, something of their beauty. We 
shall never willingly pass them by without a glance of 
greeting, any more than we shouid pass a wild rose on 
even the dustiest highway, since at sight of it something, 
we know not why, stirs in our hearts. 

Leaving Pozzolatico, the road passes behind the 
church, and winds under the great villa, lately Villa 
Lardarel, which once belonged, long and long ago, in 
the fourteenth century, to the Ricci family. Leaving 
this on the right, keeping, that is to say, to the left 
after passing the church of Pozzolatico, the road winds 
upwards in about a mile to S. Gersole. 

S. Gersole is a casale, just a few villas and case di 
compagna set on the hill of Mezzomonte, some six 
hundred and fifty feet above the sea. The strange 
name comes to it from its church, which is dedicated 
to S. Pietro in Gerusalemme, as the Bulls of Adrian 
IV. and Nicholas IV., published in 1 156 and 1291, 
tell us. S. Gersole is celebrated for its great and 
excellent wine, as Francesco Redi's song tells us,^ 

E piu grato di quelch' e 
II buon vin di Gersole. 

And then, not far away, the Conti Alberti had a villa, 
that towered house which we see to-day beside the 
canonica. Was it not such a place as this which Leon 

^ Francesco Redi, born in Arezzo in 1626, died in Pisa in 
1698. The best of his poetical writings is the Bacco in Tos- 
cana, published in Florence in 1685. Consult Gaetano Imbert, 
II Bacco in Toscana di F. R. e la poesia ditisambica (Citta di 
Castello, Laps, 1890). 



144 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Albert! regretted with so much sincerity in the Governo 
delta Famiglia, that consoling book ? 

There is nothing to-day worth seeing in the church, 
which has been altogether restored out of recognition ; 
but, as though to console us, even as we turn away the 
view across Val d'Ema opens and we see the great 
line of hills between us and Florence, where Torre del 
Gallo stands beside S. Margherita a Montici, while be- 
tween them hides the Church of S. Miniato al Monte. 

So we pass downhill ever to the right, till, in some 
half mile, where the road branches, we follow straight 
on to the left, leaving the cypres-ses of Montaguto not 
far away to the right. The Castello of Montaguto, or 
as some say Montaugutulo, ** dell' Impruneta," as it 
was called to distinguish it from the Montaguto della 
Certosa, is now just a villa, which nevertheless retains 
its parochial church of S. Maria a Montaguto. In old 
times the place was the lordship of the noble family of 
Adimari, Rolando di Signorello of that race in 1094 
giving his Castello into the care of the Badia di Monte - 
Scalari. It is to this place, too, that Villani seems to 
refer when he tells of the vengeance Florence took 
upon the Bianchi in 1302.1 However that may be, 
Montaguto is to-day an interesting and very beautiful 
relic from the Middle Age. 

Following the road, at the bottom of the hill, is a 
spoiled shrine ; leaving it, we take the road to the right 
uphill to S. Giusto. Of very ancient foundation the 
Church of S. Giusto a Ema was long and long ago in 
the patronage of the Amidei, and later of the Gherar- 
dini who had houses hereabout. Its interest for us 
to-day, however, is that it possesses a very lovely picture 
by Pontormo, over the first altar on the north, of 
Madonna enthroned with our Lord, surrounded by 

iC/. Repetti, op. cit., vol. iii., p. 270, and Villani, Cronica, 
lib. viii., cap. 53. 



S. MARGHERITA A MONTICI 14S 

angels and two saints; it is one of the best of this 
neglected painter's works. 

From S. Giusto we turn to the left by a way through 
the vineyards under the church, and follow it till we 
come into the high road and turn to the right with it, 
crossing Ema and coming into the poor village of 
Jozzoli. Following the road to the right, through the 
wretched street, we take the second turning to the left, 
up the steep hill that leads at last to Pian di Giullari. 
At the top of the hill we turn to the right, however, 
and in some three hundred yards come to the Church 
of S. Margherita a Montici. S. Margherita a Montici 
stands on the highest point of the hills which divide 
Arno from Ema. The church is a daughter of the 
Duomo, and in the thirteenth century was in the 
possession of the Compagnia di S. Maria to whom the 
Bishop of Florence in 1296 conceded an indulgence, 
amplified in 1304 by the Cardinal Niccolo da Prato, 
Bishop of Ostia and Apostolic delegate in Tuscany, 
busy just then, though unsuccessfully, with the pacifi- 
cation of Florence.^ It was here, too, that the two 
Gherardini, condemned in 1349 by the Potestafor the 
murder of a certain Firidolfi da Panzano, took refuge. 

Within, the church is beautiful, and there in the 
transepts are two very strange but lovely pictures ; to 
the south a Madonna and Child, the work of some 
unknown contemporary of Giotto, and to the north 
an early Sienese picture of S. Margherita and the his- 
tory of her life. 

On the opposite hill, across the valley of Gamberaja, 
rises Torre del Gallo, a modern restoration of that old 
castle of the Galli family from whose tower Galileo is 

^ Concerning this indulgence I can find nothing. But it will 
perhaps be remembered that it was on S. Margaret's Day, 1304, 
that Florence had her marvellous escape from the Ghibellines 
and the Uberti. See Villani, Cronica, lib. viii,, cap. 72. 
10 



146 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

said to have made his observations, consoled in his 
unhappiness by the beauty of the world about him. 

Returning from S. Margherita,^ through Pian di 
Giullari to Arcetri where the road forks, the second 
turning thence on the left brings us to the Palace of 
Poggio Imperiale, now a girls' school. 

"Formerly," Mrs. Ross tells us in her excellent 
book on the Florentine Villas, " it was called Poggio 
Baroncelli, from the rich and powerful family of that 
name who owned large possessions on this side of 
Florence, and turned an old castle into a dwelling- 
house ; but they failed in 1487, when the villa and 
much of the land belonging to it became the property 
of Agnolo Pandolfini, whose descendants sold it to 
Piero d'Alamanno Salviati. In 1548 the Salviati were 
declared rebels, and Cosimo I. seized all their pos- 
sessions." Professor Anguillesi, in his book on the 
palaces of the Crown in Tuscany, tells us that it is 
unknown how and when Poggio Imperiale passed 
from the Baroncelli to the Salviati. Cosimo I., how- 
ever, gave it to his favourite daughter. Donna Isabella, 
the wife of Duke Giordano Orsini of Rome, on con- 
dition that if she died without a son it should return 
to the Crown of Tuscany.^ After the tragic death of 
Donna Isabella, who was murdered by her husband at 
Cerreto-Guidi, Grand Duke Francesco I. gave the villa 
to him and to his son by his murdered wife, Don Virgilio 
Orsini, for their lifetime. Ferdinando I., however, in 
159 1, extended the gift to the son of Don Virgilio and 
their male descendants for ever. This branch of the 
Orsini family, however, soon seems to have died out, 
and by 1622 the villa was in the hands of the Odes- 

1 If the road past S. Margherita is followed downhill to Flor- 
ence, while you miss S. Miniato, which can be visited another 
day, a very beautiful view of Florence is gained. 

2 Repetti, op. cit., vol. iv., p. 492. 



POGGIO IMPERIALE 147 

calchi, from whom the Grand Duchess Maria Mad- 
dalena of Austria, wife of Cosimo II., bought the place 
for 25,000 ducats. It was she who, in honour of the 
Austrian Imperial family, changed its name from 
Villa Baroncelli to Poggio Imperiale, as the inscription 
over the gate testifies : — 

Villa Imperialis ab Austriacis 
Augustis Nomen Consecuta 
Futurae Magnae Duces Etruriae 
Vestro Ocio Delicisque 
Aeternum Inservat. 

The Grand Duchess had brought up at Poggio Im- 
periale Violante, her niece, the only child of Claudia 
de' Medici and Federigo della Rovere. Violante 
married Maria Maddalena's son, Ferdinando II., from 
whom she bought the place after his mother's death. 
She, as well as her aunt, embellished it, but it was 
Leopoldo I. in the eighteenth century who rebuilt the 
place as we now see it, spending some 1,300,000 lire 
upon it. ** When he, on the deatti of his brothers in 
1790," says Mrs. Ross, "became Emperor of Austria, 
his second son, Ferdinando III., succeeded to the 
Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and gave hospitality at 
Poggio Imperiale to the King of Sardinia and his wife, 
who had been compelled to quit Piedmont by the re- 
volution. Charles Emanuel IV. and Marie Clotilde ar- 
rived on 19th January, 1799, ^^^Y to be driven out after 
a month of quiet and repose. They fled to Sardinia, 
and Napoleon, having abolished Tuscany with a stroke 
of a pen, the Grand Duke took refuge with his 
brothers in Vienna. A new kingdom, Etruria, was 
then created, with Ludovico of Bourbon, son of the 
Duke of Parma, as king. He died in 1803, leaving 
his young widow as regent for his little son, and 
Poggio Imperiale became her favourite residence." 
Then Napoleon abolished the kingdom of Etruria 



148 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

and the queen-regent and her son went into exile. 
Another mistress ruled at Poggio Imperiale, Napoleon's 
sister, Elise Bonaparte, married to Felice Baciocchi, 
now Prince of Lucca and Piombino ; and there in the 
great villa they celebrated Napoleon's victories. In 
1814, however, she too crept away. It was in 1822 
that Carlo Alberto came as an exile to Florence, and 
his father-in-law, Ferdinando III., lent him Poggio 
Imperiale. There his son, Vittorio Emanuele, the 
future King of Italy, was brought up. And it is said 
that when Vittorio Emanuele entered Florence as 
King in April, i860, his first visit was to the great 
palace on the hill which had once received him as an 
exile. 

Returning from the palace past II Santuccio down 
Via S. Leonardo to the Viale de' Colli, along which, 
turning to the right, you pass for some three parts of 
a mile the whole beautiful city spread out before you, 
you come presently to S. Miniato. 

Sitting down at evening on the platform before the 
church, watching now and then the shadows steal 
down from the hills over the beautiful city at our feet, 
we may well read what her first historian says of this 
very place. 

" Now," says Villani in his first book, ^ " now that 
we have briefly made some mention of our neighbour- 
ing cities in Tuscany, we will return to our subject and 
tell of our city of Florence. As we recounted before, 
the said city was ruled long time under the govern- 
ment and lordship of the emperors of Rome, and 
oft-times the emperors came to sojourn in Florence 
when they were journeying into Lombardy and into 
Germany, and into France to conquer prisoners. And 
we find that Decius, the emperor, in the first year of 

1 Villani, Cronica, lib. i., cap. 57. 



S. MINIATO AL MONTE 149 

his reign, which was in the year of Christ 270, was in 
Florence, the treasure-house and chancelry of the 
empire, sojourning there for his pleasure ; and the 
said Decius cruelly persecuted the Christians whereso- 
ever he could hear of them or find them, and he heard 
tell how the blessed Saint Miniato was living as a 
hermit near to Florence with his disciples and com- 
panions in a wood which was called Arisbotto in Flor- 
ence behind the place where now stands his Church, 
above the city of Florence. This blessed Miniato was 
first-born son to the King of Armenia, and having left 
his kingdom for the faith of Christ, to do penance and 
to be far away from his kingdom, he went over seas to 
gain pardon at Rome, and then betook himself to the said 
wood, which was in those days wild and solitary, foras- 
much as the city of Florence did not extend and was not 
settled beyond the Arno, but was all on this side ; save 
only there was one bridge across the Arno, not, how- 
ever, where the bridges now are. And it is said by 
many that it was the ancient bridge of the Fiesolani 
which led from Girone to Candegghi, and this was 
the ancient and direct way from Rome to Fiesole 
and to go into Lombardy and across the mountains. 
The said Emperor Decius caused the said blessed 
Miniato to be taken, as his history relates : great 
gifts and rewards were offered him as to a king's 
son to the end he should deny Christ ; and he, con- 
stant and firm in the faith, would have none of his 
gifts, but endured divers martyrdoms. In the end the 
said Decius caused him to be beheaded where now 
stands the Church of Santa Candida alia Croce at 
Gorgo ; and many faithful followers of Christ received 
martyrdom at that place, and when the head of the 
blessed Miniato had been cut off, by a miracle of 
Christ, with his hands he set it again upon his trunk, 
and on his feet passed over Arno and went up to the 



I50 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

hill where now stands his church, where at that time 
there was a little oratory in the name of the blessed 
Peter the Apostle, and where many bodies of holy 
martyrs were buried. And when S. Miniato was come 
to that place he gave up his soul to Christ, and his 
body was there secretly buried by the Christians ; the 
which place by reason of the merits of the blessed S. 
Miniato, was devoutly venerated by the Florentines 
after that they were become Christians, and a little 
church was built there in his honour. But the great 
and noble church of marble which is there now in our 
times, we find to have been built later by the zeal of 
the venerable Father Alibrando, Bishop and citizen of 
Florence in the year of Christ 1013, begun on the 
26th day of the month of April by the commandment 
and authority of the Catholic and holy Emperor Henry 
II. of Bavaria, and of his wife the holy Empress 
Cunegonda, who were reigning in those times; and 
they presented and endowed the said church with 
many rich possessions in Florence and in the country, 
for the good of their souls, and caused the said church 
to be repaired and rebuilt of marbles, as it is now ; 
and they caused the body of the blessed Miniato to 
be translated to the altar which is beneath the vault- 
ing of the said church, with much reverence and 
solemnity by the said Bishop and the clergy of Flor- 
ence with all the people, both men and women, of 
the city of Florence ; but afterwards the said church 
was completed by the Commonwealth of Florence 
and the stone steps were made which lead down by 
the hill ; and the consuls of the art of the Calimala 
were put in charge of the said work of S. Miniato, and 
were to protect it." 

But it is not only of S. Miniato, so long ago, that 
we shall think in this beautiful and mysterious place, 
but of S, Giovanni Gualberto too, who forgave his 



S. MINIATO AL MONTE 151 

brother's murderer, when'^as it chanced he met him 
on this very hill, as he came into Florence on Good 
Friday morning in 1018.^ Nor shall we forget 
Michelangelo either, who fortified the place when, in 
1529, he tried to save Florence from the Medici, 
swathing the tower, as it is said, with mattresses to 
preserve it from the cannon-shot ; while it was from 
this hill that Cosimo I. held the city in leash. 

The Abbey of S. Miniato al Monte, on that hill that 
of old was called del Re, was built, as Villani has told us, 
in 1 01 3, near to a more ancient and smaller church to 
which Charlemagne is said to have offered royal tribute 
in honour of S. Miniato. The patron was the Bishop 
of Florence, Ildebrando, uomo di grande animo e di 
magnifiche opere pieno, as Repetti tells us, and it was he 
who introduced the Cluniac monks there not without a 
generous gift. The Consoli delV Arte di Calimala too 
contributed towards the building, instituting there 
Opera for its maintenance and conservation as the 
inscription of bronze proves which stands still over the 
ancient fa9ade. Restored again and again, it still 
keeps much of its ancient beauty. For to-day S. 
Miniato is one of the most beautiful and the best 
preserved of the Romanesque churches of Tuscany. 
Built like an ancient basilica with a great nave and two 
aisles, the choir and high altar are raised on twenty-eight 
beautiful rosy antique pillars, high above the confession, 
w^here S. Miniato sleeps through the centuries. The 
tribune, worked in mosaic, still keeps one of its ancient 
windows, a great slab of semi - transparent marble, 
through which a languid golden light fills the church. 
The beautiful mosaic pavement dates from 1207. The 
fading frescoes of the aisles, the splendour and quiet 
of this great and beautiful church that has guarded 

^See my Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), 
p. 360 et se(j. 



152 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Florence almost from the beginning, that has seen 
Buondelmonte die at the foot of the statue of Mars, 
that has heard the voice of Dante and watched the 
flight of Corso Donati, have a peculiar fascination, 
almost ghostly in their strangeness, beyond anything 
else to be found in Florence. And if for the most part 
the church is so ancient as to rival the Baptistery itself, 
the Renaissance has left there more than one beautiful 
thing — the exquisite frescoes of the Life of S. Benedict 
by Spinello Aretino in the sacristy ; the chapel between 
the two flights of steps leading to the choir, which 
Michelozzo built in 1448 for Piero de' Medici, to hold 
the Crucifix, now in S.. Trinita, which bowed to S. 
Giovanni Gualberto when he forgave his brother's 
murderer. It is, however, the Capella di S. Jacopo, 
certainly one of the greatest material treasures of 
Florence, that will hold us longest — that chapel in the 
left aisle built in 146 1 by Antonio Rossellino, where 
the young Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal lies in one of 
the loveliest of all Tuscan tombs, and there Luca 
della Robbia has placed some of his most charming 
terra-cottas, and Alessio Baldovinetti has painted the 
Annunciation, in fresco. Is there anything lovelier in 
all Florence than that ghost-like fresco ? Certainly in 
all Tuscany there is nothing more lovely than that tomb, 
carved in 1467 by Antonio Rossellino for the body of 
the young cardinal, but twenty-six years old when he 
died, "having lived in the flesh as though he were 
freed from it, an angel rather than a man ". Over the 
beautiful sarcophagus, on a bed beside which two boy- 
angels wait, the young cardinal sleeps, his delicate 
hands folded, at rest at last. Above, two angels kneel, 
about to give him the crown of glory which fadeth not 
away, and Madonna, borne from heaven by the children, 
comes with her Son to welcome him home. There, 
in the most characteristic work of the fifteenth century, 



S. MINIATO AL MONTE 153 

you find man still thinking about death, not as a trance 
out of which we shall awaken to some terrible re- 
membrance, but as sleep, a sweet and fragile slumber, 
that has something of the drooping of the flowers about 
it, in a certain touching beauty and regret that is never 
bitter, but like the ending of a song or the close of a 
fair day of spring, that rightly, though not without sad- 
ness, passes into silence, into night, in which shine only 
the eternal stars. 

It is strange that of all the difficult hills in Italy, it 
should be this — the old steep way hither from Porta 
S. Niccolo, in truth via Crucis — that came into Dante's 
mind when, in the Twelfth Purgatorio, he sees the 
ascent to the second cornice where is purged the sin of 
envy. 

Come a man destra, per salire al monte, 
Dove siede la chiesa, che soggioga 
La ben guidata sopra Rubaconte, 
Si rompe del montar 1' ardita foga, 
Per le scalce, che si fero ad etade 
Ch'era sicuro '1 quaderno e la doga. . . .^ 

Something of the immense sadness of that terrible 
hill seems to linger to-day about the Monte alle 
Croci : it is truly a hill of the dead over which hovers, 
pointing the way, some angel, — 

la creatxira bella 
Bianco vestita, e nella faccia quale 
Par tremolando mattutina Stella. 

The Convent of S. Salvatore — S. Francesco al 
Monte, as it was called of old — was built in 1480 
after a design by Cronaca. Hesitating among the 
cypresses on the verge of the olive gardens, Michel- 
angelo called it la sua bella Villanella, and truly in its 
warm simplicity and shy loveliness it is just that, a 

''■Purgatorio, cant. xii., 100-5. 



154 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

beautiful peasant girl among the vines in a garden of 
olives. But she has been stripped of her treasures, 
her trinkets of silver, her pretty gold chains, her gown 
of taffetas, her kerchief of silk — (do you not remember 
the verses of Lorenzo ?) — and all these you will find to- 
day, fading out of use in the Uffizi, where, in a palace 
that has become a museum, they are most out of 
place; thus they have robbed the peasants for the 
sake of the gold of the tourists, the sterile ejaculations 
of the critics. 

It is well not to return to the city by the tramway, 
which rushes through the trees of the Viale Michel- 
angelo like I know not what hideous and shrieking 
beast of prey, but to wander down towards the 
Piazzale, and then, just before you come to it, on 
your left, by S. Salvatore, to go down to Porta S. 
Miniato, that "gap in the wall," and then to pass by 
the old wall itself up the hill to Porta S. Giorgio 
among the olives between the towers under the 
Belvedere. It is the most beautiful of all the gates of 
the city, little, too, still keeping its fresco of the four- 
teenth century. 



IX 

TO THE IMPRUNETAi 

AS on the way to the Certosa, so in going to the 
Impruneta, we follow Via Romana all the way, 
till at Tavarnuzze we leave it for the by-ways. The 
old road from Florence for Rome leaves the city by 
the gate called Porta Romana, or Porta di S. Pier 
Gattolini, from the church just within the walls, and 
though doubtless it generally bore the former title as 
it does now, when but few set out thence for Rome, 
Repetti always speaks of it by the latter name. The 
great road that thus leaves the city southward, runs 
through the borgo of Galluzzo, climbs the hill under 
the Certosa, drops into the Val di Greve, crosses the 
stream, and after winding round the hill of Monte- 
buoni, climbs the long ascent of Scopeti, and passing 
through S. Casciano in Val di Pesa, crosses that 
stream too, by the Ponte Nuovo not far from Strada, 
and runs through Tavarnelle and Barberino, joining 
the great mediaeval international highway, Via Franci- 
gena,^ at last at Poggibonsi for Siena and the Eternal 
City. 

^ The tram takes you to Tavarnuzze from Mercato Nuovo. 
The route described is a good carriage road all the way. 

2 For a full account and itinerary of the Via Francigena, see 
my In Unknown Tuscany, with notes by W. Hey wood, [In the 
press,] 



156 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

By this way, when it was open, that is to say when 
Siena was friendly, or afraid, by the Via Aretina, when 
this way was closed all the traffic of the Middle Age 
and the Renaissance, passed between Florence and 
Rome. It was certainly by this way that Donatello 
passed with Brunellesco his friend, soon after that 
great and proud man had withdrawn from the contest 
with Ghiberti, for the Baptistery gates. By this way, 
too, went Lorenzo il Magnifico, the Peace of Italy, on 
that adventurous journey to the astonished King of 
Naples, to risk everything, and to win. 

Crossing Ema by Ponte di Certosa, the great road 
climbs the beautiful hill under the Certosa, only to 
leave it, and to pass over those olive-clad ridges south 
of Florence, as a ship passes over the waves, sometimes 
on the crest, sometimes in the trough of the sea. 
Thus the Via Romana sinks into the Valdi Greve, fol- 
lowing the way of the valley for some two miles, till 
at Tavarnuzze it bends suddenly as the stream has done, 
round about the hill of Montebuoni. 

Tavarnuzze, where we leave the tramway, has no- 
thing to keep us even for a moment ; our road lies not 
along Via Romana, but to the left over the hills, to 
Montebuoni, the eyrie of the Buondelmonti. 

Nothing is left to-day of the Rocca of the Buondel- 
monti, which Florence took and threw down in 1135, 
compelling the lords of that house to enter the city, 
and thereby, as it happened, laying the foundation of 
that horrid strife of Guelf and Ghibelline, which was 
to exile half her inhabitants. *' In the year of Christ 
1 135," says Villani, "the fortress of Montebuono was 
standing, which was very strong, and pertained to the 
house of Buondelmonti, which were Cattant, ancient 
gentlemen of the country, and from the name of this 
their caste llo, the house of Buondelmonti took its name ; 



TO THE IMPRUNETA 157 

and by reason of its strength, and because the road ran 
at the foot thereof, therefore they took toll, for the 
which thing the Florentines did not desire, nor would 
they suffer such a fortress hard- by the city ; and they 
went thither with an army in the month of June and 
took it, on condition that the fortress should be dis- 
troyed, and the rest of the possessions should still 
pertain to the said Cattani, and that they should come 
and dwell in Florence. And thus the Commonwealth 
of Florence began to grow, and by force, rather than 
by right, their territory increased, and they subdued to 
their jurisdiction every noble of the district, and de- 
stroyed the fortresses." ^ That was in 1 135. Eighty 
years later, in 12 15, the tremendous fifth act of the 
tragedy of the fall of the nobles began in Florence. 
It is a well-known tale, yet Villani's words are so simple 
and so few that I cannot forbear to set them down 
again. 2 

"In the year of Christ 12 15 Messer Gherardo 
Orlandi being Podesta in Florence, one Messer Buon- 
delmonte dei Buondelmonti, a noble citizen of Flor- 
ence, had promised to take to wife a maid of the house 
of the Amidei, honourable and noble citizens; and 
afterwards as the said Messer Buondelmonte, who was 
very charming and a good horseman, was riding through 
the city, a lady of the house of Donati called to him, 
reproaching him as to the lady to whom he was be- 
trothed, that she was not beautiful or worthy of him, 
and saying : ' I have kept this my daughter for you ' ; 
whom she showed to him, and she was most beautiful ; 
and immediately, by the inspiration of the devil, he 
was so taken by her, that he was betrothed and wedded 
to her, for which thing the kinsfolk of the first be- 

^Villani, Crotiica, lib. iv. cap. 36. 

^ It might seem needless to refer the reader to the unforget- 
table lines of Dante, Infenw, xxviii., 103-11. 



158 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

trothed lady, being assembled together, and grieving 
over the shame which Messer Buondelmonte had done 
to them, were filled with the accursed indignation, 
whereby the city of Florence was destroyed and divided. 
For many houses of the nobles swore together to bring 
shame upon the said Messer Buondelmonti, in revenge 
for these wrongs. And being in council among them- 
selves, after what fashion they should punish him, 
whether by beating or killing, Mosca de' Lamberti 
said the evil word : * Thing done has an end ' ; to 
wit, that he should be slain ; and so it was done ; for 
on the morning of Easter of the Resurrection, the 
Amidei of San Stefano assembled in their house, and 
the said Messer Buondelmonte coming from Oltrarno, 
nobly arrayed in new white apparel, and upon a white 
palfrey, arriving at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio on 
this side, just at the foot of the pillar where was the 
statue of Mars, the said Messer Buondelmonte was 
dragged from his horse by Schiatto degli Uberti, and 
by Mosca Lamberti, and Lambertuccio degli Amidei, 
assaulted and smitten by Oderigi Fifanti, his veins were 
opened and he was brought to his end ; and there was 
with him one of the Counts of Gangalandi. For the 
which thing the city rose in arms and tumult ; and this 
death of Messer Buondelmonte was the cause and 
beginning of the accursed parties of Guelf and Ghibel- 
line in Florence, albeit long before there were factions 
among the noble citizens, and the said parties existed 
by reason of the strifes and questions between the 
Church and the Empire ; but by the reason of the 
death of the said Messer Buondelmonte, all the families 
of the nobles and the other citizens of Florence were 
divided, and some held with the Buondelmonti, who 
took the side of the Guelfs, and were its leaders, and 
some with the Uberti, who were the leaders of the 
Ghibellines, whence followed much evil and disaster 



TO THE IMPRUNETA 159 

to our city, as hereafter shall be told ; and it is believed 
that it will never have an end, if God do not cut it 
short. And surely it shows that the enemy of the 
human race, for the sins of the Florentines, had power 
in that idol of Mars, which the pagan Florentines of 
old were wont to worship, that at the foot of his statue 
such a murder was committed, whence so much evil 
followed to the city of Florence. . . ."^ 

At the eastern extremity of the Borgo of Montebuoni 
stands the Church of S. Pietro, built, as it is said, by 
the Buondelmonti themselves, but certainly keeping 
but little of the work of their time. Within is a 
charming fourteenth century picture of Madonna and 
Child. 

Following the road to the left out of Montebuoni 
on the hillside, it is a distance of nearly two miles to 
the little church, by the way, of S. Martino a Bagnolo, 
Bagnolo dell' Impruneta, where of old the Gherardini 
were lords, and where the gxe^X glureconsulto Acursio was 
born. The church is small, and not very interesting, 
for it too has suffered every sort of restoration, yet it 
still keeps over the altar a picture of S. Martino, S. 
Niccolo, and S. Rocco, a fifteenth century work, and 
a fine Cross of the fourteenth century. 

From Bagnolo it is but a step along that beautiful 
country road to the Impruneta, that scattered ragged 
village in the hills, gathered about a huge empty piazza, 
where on one side stands the shrine of Madonna. 

The Impruneta is a comunanza of twelve small 
borghi-^ really a great village on the hills about six 

^ Villani, Cronica, lib. v., cap. 38. 

"^ So G. B. Casotti in his learned and invaluable work, Memorie 
Istoriche delta Miracolosa Immagine di Mana Vergine dell' 
Impruneta (Firenze, 1714), P. i., p. 6. Carocci {II Comune 
del Galluzzo (Firenze, 1892), p. 149), however, says he cannot 
trace these twelve horghi. 



i6o COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

miles from Florence above Val di Greve. Very ancient 
in its foundation, its name to-day is a corruption from 
in Fineta, in the pine wood, and indeed it seems that 
long and long before Madonna came here, there was a 
shrine in the silence of the forest to quale he falsa 
Delta, as Casotti thinks, to some god certainly : would 
that it might prove to be Diana herself. We first 
meet with the name in a contract of a gift made on 
the 4th of November, 1040, by a certain Orlando, son 
of Goffredo, Canonico della Chiesa Fiorentina, to a 
Spedale founded for poor people and pilgrims, and if 
we may gather anything from names. Madonna, 
even so long ago, was specially worshipped here, for 
the place even then was called Sande Marie sito Pinita. 
In another deed of gift, in 1069, we read Jmpineto, 
and later de Fifteta, but the corruption of the 
name as we now know it, seems to have occurred 
in the thirteenth century, when we find de Fineta 
no longer, but in Feneta, and other variants, and 
at last in Pruneta, in Fruneto, i?iter Fruneta, and in 
Frunetis} 

Now, whether or no the place was sacred to our 
gods long and long ago, and indeed that seems likely 
enough, to judge by the treasures that were dug up 
here in the fifteenth century, when the present church 
was founded, 2 there seems certainly by 1046 to have 
been an oratory or a chapel here, whether in the place 
called la Fiazza where the present church stands, or 
in the little wood above on the hill still called S. Mary's, 
we do not know. Certainly a church was built — a 
church or chapel — later on the site of the present 

1 Casotti, op. cit., P. 1., p. g. 

2 Casotti (op. cit.) says many "idols" were found, and 
figures of serpents, coins and so forth, and a fonte too, 
still to be seen behind the wall of the castello towards the 
sacristy. 



' l!|i;nilli:ull|!;|i| 



'■' Ml l' I i I ' P 

iliili 




TO THE IMPRUNETA i6i 

building, which is indeed the third that has stood on 
that spot. 1 

All this territory was in the possession of the great 
family of Buondelmonti of Montebuono, and as we 
shall see they were among the earliest and certainly 
the greatest patrons of the shrine that soon spread the 
fame of Impruneta through all the Fiorentino. Of 
the two earlier churches doubtless built under Buon- 
delmonti patronage, we know almost nothing ; the 
present building is a work certainly of the fifteenth 
century, and it owes its being to Monsignore Antonio 
degli Agli, Patrizio Fiorentino, Pievano e Benefattore 
Insigne di Qiiesta Chiesa : and restored though his 
church has been, in 1593 and in 1634, it is still for the 
most part a building of the fifteenth century. 

Antonio degli Agli was Pievano here for thirty-eight 
years, from 1439 to 1477. Casotti says he was an 
excellent philosopher ; he was, as we know, a Canonico, 
and later he became Decano della Metropolitana di 
Firenze, Archbishop of Raugia, Bishop of Fiesole, 
and finally Bishop of Volterra ; moreover, Vespasiano 
da Bisticci thought him worthy to appear in his book, 
Vite di Uomini Illustri. His church, even to-day so 
strangely like a castello, was, Casotti says, built thus 
purposely for the sake of security, since it possessed 
so rare a treasure, and Padre Domenico, the fifteenth 
century Latin poet, seems to agree with him.^ 

1 See Casotti, op. cit., P. i., pp. 39, 42. 

2 There is a great number of Elogi, Laude, Sonetti and so 
forth to '* S. Maria Impruneta," of which Padre Domenico's is 
so far as I know the earliest. 

Sed mehus munire volens Antonius illam 

Ut cum plebe simul tutior ipse foret. 

Dum rex aragonum populos Alphonsus ethruscos 

Terreret magno nomine saepe suo : 

Ut validam firmis precinxit turribus arcem. 

Ne foris orta sibi bella nocere queant . . . 



1 62 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Within the "castello," which is loo braccia wide 
and 150 long, are two cloisters, one very ancient, the 
other much more modern, the houses of the Cappellani 
and of the clergy who formed a college which served 
the church, the house of their Capo and the church it- 
self. The fa9ade of the church, which faces the Piazza, 
is beautiful, flanked as it is by two towers, all that are 
left of the four originally designed. The portico up- 
held by four columns and two pilasters, is an addition 
made by the Venerabile Compagnia della Stimmate di 
S. Francesco in Firenze^ in 1634 ; their arms are over 
it, together with the following inscription, in the frieze, 
composed by Alessandro Adimari : — 

REG : FERD : II M.D. MARI^ PRECIBUS DEPULSA 
PESTE STYGMATUM D. FRANCISCI SOCIETAS DEI- 
PAR^ LIBERATRICI AN ; DNI CIOIOCXXXIIII. 

Under this portico are the great doors, and over 
them the coats of the Buondelmonti with this inscrip- 
tion in Gothic characters : — 

ARMA PATRONORUM ET DEFENSORUM ISTIVS PLEBIS. 

Under the Buondelmonti coats are the arms of Leo 
X. placed there by the Cardinal- Archbishop Alessandro 
de' Medici in 1594. 

Within, the church is of a single nave, made thus 
perhaps to hold the immense crowds that flocked to 
it, perhaps the greatest shrine of Madonna in Tus- 
cany. Over the doors within the church is a very rude 
bas-relief, brought here probably from the old church. 

he sings of the form of the church. Later, Ser Francesco 
d'Albizzolo made three Laude per La Tavola di S. Maria 
Impruneta in the vulgar tongue ; others followed, among them 
Antonio Francesco Grazzini detto il Lasca with five sonetti, and 
Alessandro Adimari with a great Ode, all in due form for the 
Translation of the Image made on 21st May, 16^^, per inipetrar 
soccorso nel presente Contagio. He wrote another in 1649. 



TO THE IMPRUNETA 163 

Three figures are carved there, each separated by a 
column which sustains the tabernacles in which they 
stand ; and there is Madonna with a saint on either 
side. 

Just within these doors to the left is the baptistery, 
with a font of the eighteenth century. The simple 
nave is broken by four altars, two on either side, addi- 
tions it might seem of 1593 when the church was re- 
stored. Over these altars are four late pictures : the 
Calling of S. Peter and S. Andrew by Jacopo da 
Empoli ; the Assumption of the Virgin by Cigoli ; the 
Nativity of the Virgin by Passignano ; and the Martyr- 
dom of S. Lorenzo by Cristofano Allori. The two 
chapels at the end of the transepts are dedicated, that 
on the south to S. Maria Maddalena, that on the north 
to S. Sebastiano. Beneath the altar of the first is the 
marble tomb of Antonio degli Agli, the builder of the 
church. Over the tomb in a to7tdo in the wall is a re- 
lief of Madonna with our Lord in her arms, and on 
the front of the tomb the following inscription : — 

D. O. M. 

Antistes Templi iacet hac Antonius urna 
Allius insignis moribus et genere. 
Nobilis hie sibi vixit inops et dives egenis 
Consilioque gravi profuit atque opera. 
Dumque pius Pastor Volaterris aut Epidauri 
Dogmate pavit oves non timuere Lupum 
Vixit An LXXVII Mens X 
Dieb. X. 

In the chapel of S. Sebastiano in the north transept, 
where there is a statue of that saint by Rosselli, Man- 
ente de' Buondelmonti was buried in 1498. While 
over the high altar lately restored to its ancient sim- 
plicity stands the great polyptych painted in 1375 by 
the Florentines Pietro Nelli and Tommaso del Maza. 

The two famous chapels, however, stand on either 



1 64 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

side of the chancel arch, the one dedicated to the Holy 
Cross, and the other to Madonna. The chapel on 
the south, called of the Holy Cross because of the 
relic which it guards was of old called del Santissimo, 
" for it was destined for the use and custody of the 
Venerable Sacrament of the Body of Christ ". The 
chapel itself is certainly the work of Michelozzo, while 
the very beautiful Tabernacle over the altar is almost 
certainly the work of Luca della Robbia, so like to 
Luca's Ciborium at Peretola, as to be almost unques- 
tionably from his hand. On either side of the Taber- 
nacle stand S. John Baptist and S. Augustine, the 
former as it might seem the work of Luca, the latter of 
his son Andrea. " Nothing could be stronger, freer 
in bearing, nobler in expression and gesture than this 
alert figure of the Baptist," says Miss Cruttwell, whose 
excellent book on the della Robbia I have referred to 
more than once already. "Nothing could be more 
finely modelled than his limbs, hands and feet, nothing 
more masterly than the simple treatment of the hair 
tunic on his broad chest and shoulders. The face 
is like that of S. James the Less among the Pazzi 
Apostles, but is even more concentrated and keen. The 
whole figure seems to vibrate with tense life and energy. 
In the lifeless statue opposite we have the same type 
of fac€, the same features, the same prominent cheek 
bones, the same arrangement of the beard. We have 
Luca's simple draperies, and this time, also, his mas- 
sively constructed frame; but the expression of the 
face is weak and vacant, the hands flaccid and inert. 
. . . Evidently ... we have in this S. Augustine 
Andrea working after the design of Luca. 

^'ThQ predella below is by Luca himself, and is one 
of his most beautiful reliefs. If it should appear strange 
that while leaving parts apparently of more importance 
to his pupil, Luca should himself have executed the 




ALTAR-PIECE 
; and Andrea della Robbia, in the Cappella della Croce S. Maria deW Iinprtineta 



TO THE IMPRUNETA 165 

subordinate part, it must be remembered that in its 
original state this predella with its shrine was the 
principal part and focus of the Tabernacle, the re- 
ceptacle of the Holy Sacrament which the whole altar- 
piece was executed to enclose. . . . 

" On either side of the small door of the shrine float 
four angels, those nearest in subdued adoration, those 
beyond with more animated gesture, as though beckon- 
ing others to come and worship." 

Much of this is hidden from visitors by the tawdry 
ornaments of the altar, but if the dusty artificial flowers 
be put aside the beauty of the work will at once be 
seen, a beauty unsuspected behind those poor and 
vulgar candlesticks in the wretched light of the darkest 
corner of the church. The roof of the chapel, most 
lovely and charming, is also Luca's work, but the 
frieze which he certainly made for it is missing, the 
stucco reliefs we see to-day being part of the so-called 
"restoration" of 1650.^ 

The chapel, however, is no longer that of the Blessed 
Sacrament, but, as I have said, of the Holy Cross. It 
seems that Filippo degli Scolari, commonly called 
Pippo Espano, ^^ uomo verauiente per fama immortale" 
Casotti tells us, gave the relic, a large piece of the 
True Cross. To guard this the Grand Duchess Maria 
Maddalena of Austria presented to the church a reli- 
quary of silver in 1620. The pity of it is, however, 
not indeed that the church possesses such a relic, but 
that Luca's Tabernacle was destroyed for the sake of 
it. He built his Tabernacle, not for this relic at all, 
but for the Blessed Sacrament, and as a door for it, 
within the beautiful enamelled framework was set the 
Crucifixion, an enamelled relief by the master himself 
now in the adjoining chapel. This was removed, since 

^Maud Cruttwell, op. cit., p. 115. 



1 66 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

it was not strong enough to resist thieves, and the 
horrible iron doors we see there to-day were substituted. 
This improvement seems to have been made in 1593 ^ 
when the church was first restored. In turning now 
to the chapel on the north side of the chancel arch, 
the Chapel of Madonna, we come upon the secret, 
the hidden secret, of the whole church. Luca and 
Andrea della Robbia have worked there, Michelozzo 
too, and countless grey and golden heads have bowed 
in adoration of the Miraculous Image of Maria Vergine 
deir Impruneta, which how few have ever seen. Yet 
it was for the sake of this Immagine the church was 
built. 

The work, as it is said, of S. Luke himself, brought 
here, as the good Caostti suggests, by one of those holy 
men, S. Romolo, for instance, whom S. Peter sent into 
Tuscany, the picture was, as he presently goes on to 
assure us, adored long and long before there was a 
church here to hold it, in the woods themselves, that 
at that time covered this hillside ; till suddenly, as it 
might seem, and whether it were the work of Madonna 
herself or of our great enemy we shall never know, 
suddenly the picture vanished and could not be found. 
Then in fear and great sorrow the people set about 
building a church to Mary our Hope. The story of 
this building is very quaintly and roughly told in the 
beginning of the Libi'o de Capitoli della Compagnia 
delta della Afostra Donna — founded, Messer Stefano 
Pievano tells us, in 1340; but Casotti will not have 
it so, preferring riformata to fondata, for he thinks it 
an older affair than that.^ 

"The people of the district and village now called 

1 See p. 161. Miss Cruttwell thinks it was substituted in 1650, 
but the Grand Duchess had already given the silver reliquary 
in 1630. See Casotti, op. cit., P. i., p. 35. 

2 Casotti, op. cit., P. i., p. 43. 



TO THE IMPRUNETA 167 

S. Maria dell' Impruneta," writes Messer Stefano/ 
" wished to build a temple with a baptismal font to 
the honour of the Divine Majesty and of our Blessed 
Lady the Glorious Virgin on the hill called after the 
name of S. Mary in the Piviere aforenamed : but to 
the surprise of every one it was always found that what 
was built by day was thrown to the ground by night. 

"Therefore having recourse to God and to His 
Mother with much fasting and prayer, and also to the 
opinion of the wise prelates of the City of Florence, 
who are inspired by God, it was decided to build a 
pieve, where God Himself should please, and this was 
done by sending forth a pair of bullocks with a load 
of building stones on the aforesaid hill : the said 
bullocks, not fierce as is their wont, but docile, were 
sent by God without human guidance to the place 
where now is the very church and Pieve of S. Maria 
deir Impruneta. Here where it was evident that the 
Lord had decided that the Church should be built in 
honour of His Mother, with admirable eagerness nobles 
and worthy people of every sort and condition set to 
work to quarry stone for that building. Their fervour 
was so great that they worked somewhat incautiously 
and without order, knowing nothing of the treasure 
that was preserved in that spot for the salvation of 
many. 

" Suddenly while thus hewing away the stone there 
was heard a voice crying out, on which every one present 
was filled with fear and reverence, and the zeal of the 
workers was modified, and presently there was seen 
the very tavola of the picture of the glorious Virgin ; 
already slightly chipped by the workers. When this 
was observed and the voice heard, all present were 

^ See Casotti, op. cit., P. i., p. 44, where most of the document, 
very verbose and full of religious platitudes, is given. 



1 68 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

filled with deepest reverence, and began to praise the 
mercy of God Who had shown by the course of the 
unguided bullocks. ..." 

This, it seems, was in 1340 ; ^ and already in 1354 
those processions of the citizens of Florence in honour 
of this picture had begun. There was great drought 
in that year, and " the Florentines, fearing to lose the 
fruits of the earth, had recourse to Divine assistance, 
making prayers and continual processions through the 
city and through the contado. And the more proces- 
sions they made, so much the more was the sky serene 
and full of stars by day, by night. The citizens, seeing 
that they got no help from these devotions, turned to 
our Lady and caused to be brought forth the ancient 
figure of our Lady painted in the tavola of S. Maria 
in pianeta^ and on the ninth of the month of May of 
the said year (1354) prepared throughout the com- 
mune many tapers, and the clergy with all the Religious 
went in procession with the arm of Messer S. Filippo 
Apostolo and with the venerable Head of S. Zanobi 
and with many other Holy Relics, and almost all the 
people, men, women and children, with the /r/*?/-/ and 
all the signorie of Florence, sounding the bells of the 
Commune and of the churches, praising God. And 
they went to meet the said Tavola outside the Gate 
of S. Piero Ghattolino. And those of the House of 
Buondelmonti, Padroni of the said Pieve, reverently 
with the men of the Piviere guarded and bore the 
said tavola. And when the bishop with the proces- 
sion and with the relics and with the people met the 
Holy Picture, with great reverence and solemnity they 
conducted it to S. Giovanni and afterwards to San 
Miniato al Monte, and then replaced it in its ancient 
habitation at S. Maria in pianeta. ..." 

^Casotti, op. cit., P. i., p. 45. 



TO THE IMPRUNETA 169 

Whether that was the first of the processions which 
in time of need the people of Florence made in honour 
of the picture, I do not know. It was certainly not 
the last. In 1368 a procession was made in July 
because of too great rain ; in 1383 per cagto?ie di mor- 
talita e di gran pioggia, again in 1384, and 1389, 1392, 
1396 and 1400. Nor did the processions become less 
frequent ; no less than forty- five taking place in the 
fifteenth century. After 1552, however, they became 
much less usual, but did not altogether cease till the 
year 1711.^ 

As we have seen, it was in the fifteenth century 
that the devotion of the people to S. Maria dell' 
Impruneta was at its height ; and it was then that 
Michelozzo and the della Robbia were called in to de- 
corate her shrine and the chapel of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. Michelozzo was undoubtedly the architect not 
only of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, now of 
Holy Cross, but also of the chapel of Madonna ; and 
spoiled though his work has been in both, a discerning 
eye may even yet discover the beauty hidden there 
behind the vulgar modern work. The work of the 
della Robbia, the enamelled decoration, is nearly the 
same in both chapels. Here in the chapel of Madonna 
it consists of two statues supporting a marble taber- 
nacle, a coffered roof, and a frieze outside the chapel. 
The Tabernacle itself might seem to be the work of 
Michelozzo ; ^ below in the Predella, quite hidden by 
the late and heavy silver altar, is a relief telling the story 
of the finding of the holy image. " The relief," says 
Miss Cruttwell, who is almost alone in having seen it, 
" is so low that the finger scarcely feels a change of sur- 
face passing over it, but the perspective of the little 

^ For a full account of the last procession, see Casotti, op. cit.j 

P. i., p. 213 et seq. 

^Cf. Maud Cruttwell, op. cit., p. log. 



I70 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

building (intended to represent the Collegiata itself) and 
of the distant hills is so skilful that it seems like a delicate 
painting in grisaille. . . . 

" On either side of the tabernacle stand the nearly 
life-sized figures of S. Paul and S. Luke, enamelled in 
pure white against a background of blue tiles designed 
to look like large irregularly-cut blocks of stone. The 
figures appear free standing statues, but are in reality 
attached to the background. Difficulty as to author- 
ship at once begins, for never were two sculptures 
stylistically so alike, so dissimilar in feeling — one figure 
so noble, so splendidly posed, so free in expression and 
gesture, the other so feeble, so ill-balanced, so lacking 
in dignity. That the S. Luke (to the right of the 
tabernacle) is by Luca himself there can be no pos- 
sible doubt. ... It is indeed one of his noblest 
enamelled terra-cottas and has the classic grandeur of 
the S. Andrea of the Pazzi Atrium. On the other 
side is S. Paul, alike in external feature and drapery to 
Luca's work, yet failing in every respect to attain the 
same quality. ..." 

It is here within this sumptuous and beautiful work, 
ever guarded by S. Luke, her historian, and S. Paul, 
her defender, that Madonna dell' Impruneta waits. For 
within the marble tabernacle is a tabernacle of wood 
painted both within and without on a gold ground with 
two choirs of angels. Without, it is divided into six 
compartments : in the two above is the Mystery of 
the Annunciation ; in the two in the middle, S. Zanobi 
and another ; and in two below, S. Giovanni Battista 
and S. Cristofano.i Within, is the Immagine, that 
Tavola where is painted the great Mother of God. 

^ Needless to say, I have not seen this casquet. The de- 
scription is Casotti's {op. cit., P. i., p. 37). The picture seems 
never to have been uncovered in pubHc ; it was borne in pro- 
cession in this casquet. 




THE CRUCIFIXION 

By Liica della. Robbia in the Chjcrch of S. Maria, dell, Inipi-iineta 



MONTECCHIO 171 

Few nowadays come to visit Madonna of the Im- 
pruneta, few even to see the work of Luca della Rob- 
bia, of Andrea his son, and of the great Michelozzo, 
the favourite architect of Cosimo de' Medici. To-day 
it is not the glory of the Blessed Virgin that brings 
the contadini and the people of Florence to these 
beautiful hills, but the great fair held every year 
on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in the 
octave of S. Luke, of which Callot made his famous 
engraving. 

. The road back to Florence leaves the great Piazza 
of Impruneta to the south-west. Passing across the 
hills where the olives smile so discreetly and laugh 
aloud for joy on a day of wind, turning to silver in 
the sunshine, in something less than a mile you come 
to Montecchio, a little village of great antiquity once 
in the power of the Buondelmonti, whom it has sur- 
vived. The Church of S. Pietro that has stood there 
certainly since the twelfth century is a daughter of the 
Pieve of Impruneta. Thence, still passing over the 
hills above the torrent of Luciana on the north, and 
ignoring the ways that leave the highway to the right, 
in another mile you come to Quintole with its church 
of S. Miniato which has certain remains of beautiful 
frescoes and, best of all, keeps still its ancient altar- 
piece, now in the choir, where we see a Virgin en- 
throned with our Lord on her knees and beside her 
S. Catherine of Alexandria, S. Miniato, S. Giovanni 
Evangelista and S. Leonardo, and beneath two angels 
who sound trumpets "to accompany the hymns of the 
saints ". Who painted this marvellous and exquisite 
work I do not know, but it is of the school of Lorenzo 
Monaco. 

Another mile on the road to Florence we come to 
Riboja, a villa once belonging to the Giovanni ; a 



1 7 2 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

chapel close by still keeps a fourteenth century picture 
of the marriage of S. Catherine. 

If you continue on your way in another mile and a 
half you will find yourself on the Via Romana ; but 
there is a road through the vineyard, a rough country 
way, from Riboja, which leaves the highway on the 
left, and following it presently in some half a mile you 
find another country road running across it. Turning 
again to the right here in about a quarter of a mile 
you come to the Church of S. Lorenzo alle Rose. It 
is as old as the thirteenth century and still possesses 
a little Giottesque picture representing Madonna with 
our Lord, while over the high altar is an Annunciation 
in the manner of Ridolfo Ghirlandajo. 

Passing this church, in another quarter of a mile 
where this by-way joins the highway we left at Riboja, 
is the great villa of the Antinori, perhaps the most 
beautiful palace in all this valley. Messer Niccolo di 
Tommaso Antinori in 1487 bought the place called 
now, as long ago, Le Rose from Madonna Elisabetta, 
the widow of Antonio de Rossi, whose family had 
great possessions hereabouts. And it was for the 
new owners that Giovanni della Robbia carved and 
painted the beautiful lunette of the Resurrection which 
used to stand within, over the garden gate of the villa, 
where some one had blazoned too the coat of the 
Antinori family. These beautiful things are there no 
longer. Far away in Brooklyn they are fading in the 
destroying air of the New World. In truth, who could 
imagine such things in the iron houses, steam-heated 
too, that have already been the ruin of I know not 
how many Italian pictures, those paintings on wood, 
which will not stay even for one winter in so artificial 
a world. 

So following the road to the left you come to Via 
Romana and the tramway, and so back to Florence ; 




OLD HOUSES NEAR IMPRUNETA 



TO THE IMPRUNETA 173 

but perhaps if you walk, or if, taking the tram, you for- 
sake it for the road at Le Due Strade, you may care 
to see one more splendour before returning to the 
ways of the city, — I mean S. Maria alle Campora. 

Just before you come to Le Due Strade, on your 
way into Florence, a road leaves Via Romana suddenly 
on the left, and curving downhill leads you in less 
than a quarter of a mile to a little highway where you 
turn to the right, and so in a hundred yards or so come 
to the great villa and the Church of S. Mary, which 
is to-day only a fragment, just the Chapel of the Benini 
Formichi. Founded in 1368 by Messer Fra Barto- 
lommeo di Bindi Benini, Prior, Carocci tells us, of the 
Ordine Gerosolimitano, there yet remain here frescoes 
of that time " of the school of the Gaddi," on the 
walls and the arch. Among those precious fragments 
of which, as we have seen, so many are scattered on 
the hills here, these frescoes are not the least precious 
among those precious things which lend to any walk 
in the Florentine country that I have so loved some- 
thing of the rareness of a vision, the joy of coming 
upon some exquisite thing suddenly by the wayside. 



X 



TO COMPIOBBI, MONTACUTO, VILLAMAGNA, 
THE INCONTRO, MIRANSt, ROSANO, 
AND PONTASSIEVEi 

THERE are many ways from Florence to the In- 
contro, where, as it is said, though I can find 
nothing concerning it, S. Francis met S. Dominic on 
his way to Rome, and of these, two pass through the 
valley on either side of the Arno, while another pass- 
ing through Bagno a Ripoli begins to climb the great 
hill at Paterno. That is a good way, too, which starts 
from Settignano and following along the by-ways, 
through Terenzano to Compiobbi, crosses the river 
there in the ferry and climbs the hill at last through 
Montacuto and Villamagna. And it is by this way 
that I always choose to go, because it is one of the 
fairest ways in Tuscany. 

^ This is rather a long walk, and will fill a whole day. It 
can be shortened by taking the train from Florence to Com- 
piobbi. As with the other walks, it can be driven easily 
enough; but in that case the way to Compiobbi should be that 
which leaves the city by the Barriera di S. Niccolo and follows 
the river. The road from Compiobbi is uphill all the way to 
Villamagna, where the carriage may well be left, and the hill to 
the Incontro, a v/alk of some three-quarters of an hour, climbed 
on foot, returning to Villamagna. The road thence to Miransu 
after the first half-mile is fairly level, after which there is a steep 
descent into Rosano. The road from Rosano to Florence is 
good and level. 



i:j4 



TO COMPIOBBI AND PONTASSIEVE 175 

Leaving the tram in the little Piazza at Settignano 
and passing up the village street, you take the second 
way to the right, Via del Crocifisso in alto, and 
presently along that undulating road, after passing the 
first group of houses, not without turning to look at 
Settignano on her hill, you come in sight of the great 
Gamberaja villa, with its marvellous cypresses and 
hedges of pink roses, those " twice blossoming roses 
of Paestum " of which Virgil speaks. 

Atque equidem, extremo ni jam sub fine laborum 
Vela traham, et terris festinem advertere proram; 
Forsitan et, pingues hortos quae cura colendi 
Ornaret, canerem, biferique rosaria Paesti. 

Villa Gamberaja is a building of the seventeenth 
century. Its architect is unknown, and indeed its 
history is altogether rather obscure. It seems to 
have been built for Zanobi Lapi, as an inscription 
over a door in the entrance hall tells us Zenobius 
Lapius Fundavit mdcx?- 

The little house close by along the road on the 
right is said to have been the birthplace of the two 
sculptors Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino, whose 
family name was Gamberelli, but certainly Villa 
Gamberaja has no connection with them. 

" Popular tradition," says Mrs. Ross, " which is all 
we have to depend on, declares that several rills and 
springs of water formed a small lake or pond near by, 
where the country folk used to catch crayfish (gamberi), 
hence the name Gamberaja, the abode of crayfish." 

Passing under the magnificent cypress walk of the 
villa and round about the old ilex grove that guards 
it on the north,- you come in a little while to the top 
of the hill, where an ancient shrine, // Crocifisso in 
alto, still watches over the city, beautiful, far away in 

iSee Janet Ross, Florentine Villas (Dent, 1904), p. 117. 



176 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the plain. Turning here sharply to the left along the 
road to Terenzano,i keep straight on, winding to left 
or right as the road goes, refusing alike the ways to 
the valley and the ways to the hills, till once past 
Terenzano and its church, where the frescoes are 
fading behind the altar, in about a mile the road dips 
suddenly and passing under the railway joins Via Are- 
tina. All along that by-way among the olives the 
beautiful vista of Val d'Arno has opened before you 
with the hill of the Incontro, across the river, Monta- 
cuto, that castello on the hill-top under it, while, far 
away in the valley, Arno, between gold and green, 
breaks over the weir at Compiobbi. 

Having won to Via Aretina, you follow it quite 
through Compiobbi with its dusty cypresses, till, on the 
right hand, you come to the ferry between the weirs. 
Crossing the river here, on the southern bank you 
ignore the by-way, passing straight to the highroad, 
which you follow to the right, turning later sharply up 
a steep road to the left past some houses beside the 
main road. In three hundred yards the road divides, 
and here you take the left branch, which, winding about 
and about, presently climbs a steep hill on the way to 
Montacuto. And as you follow that winding way 
ever higher, a marvellous view gradually opens before 
you, of the great hills to the east over Val d'Arno, 
while far and far away northward between the hills 
the Convent of Monte Senario rises up like some 
enormous shrine among the mountains. So by-and- 
by on that beautiful road you come to the Castello of 
Montacuto. 

Montacuto, like so many other places of the same 
name in Italy — in Tuscany alone there are some six- 
teen of them — gets its name from its shape, for it stands 

1 This is the road for a mile which we have traversed in the 
opposite direction in chapter ii., p. 40. 



MONTACUTO 177 

up like a great pyramid out of the valley. Repetti 
for once is almost silent about it, but Carocci tells us 
that there was a Rocca here from very ancient times, 
adding that what with the steepness of its hillside and 
the want of roads it was one of the most powerful of the 
minor fortresses held by those potent families whom 
Florence had to tame. In those days its lords were 
the Compiobbesi, from whom, it seems, the little town 
in the valley gets its name of Compiobbi. Consist- 
ently Ghibelline the Compiobbesi, like the rest of that 
faction here in the Fiorentino, fell, and their castle was 
confiscated, though a branch of the family became 
Guelf, maybe for the sake of their possessions, maybe 
from personal hate ; yet they w^ere compelled to live in 
Florence. So the Rocca of Montacuto, like so many 
other fortresses on these hills, became a villa. In the 
early part of the fifteenth century the Salviati held it, 
in the late sixteenth century it came into the hands of 
the Acciajuoli, passing in the seventeenth century by 
marriage to the Guadagni, and from them in payment 
of debt in the eighteenth century to Pier Maria Spagni, 
till later the Marchesi Tolomei Baldovinetti bought it. 
And it is the descendant of this family, Conte Blasi 
Foglietti, who holds it to-day. Consisting, as it does 
now, of a splendid towered villa with its dependencies 
and a chapel, S. Jacopo, it would have merely a 
picturesque interest for us, but that the chapel was 
originally the Church of the Castello, and there you 
may still find over the altar a beautiful work by some 
pupil of Verrocchio, perhaps Lorenzo di Credi him- 
self, of Madonna adoring her little Son with S. Giuseppe 
beside her. 

From Montacuto the road winds upwards towards 
Villamagna. Just above the Castello, by a red 
towered villa, a most lovely view of Val d'Arno opens 
toward Florence with the city in the plain, and beyond 



lyS COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

and beyond the peaks of the Apuan Alps, the Monti 
Pisani, and northward the Carrara hills. Then as you 
follow the road, at a group of poor houses across the 
way, you turn to the right, and in about half a mile 
come to the Church of S. Romolo, just beneath the 
highway. Here, over an altar, against the north wall 
stands one of the fairest Byzantine pictures I have 
ever found in Italy, a Madonna with her little Son. 

It is but a mile from S. Romolo to the village of 
Villamagna. Nothing ever seems to have happened 
at Villamagna, nestling now on its hillside among its 
cherry-trees and olives, and indeed our interest in it, 
save that it is beautiful, is confined to its churches, the 
Pieve of S. Donnino and the Oratorio of S. Gherardo. 

S. Donnino is very ancient, founded indeed in 1067, 
but it is the work of the Renaissance that we find there 
rather than the church itself that calls us to stop on 
the way. For over the altar at the eastern end of the 
north aisle is a Virgin enthroned between four saints, 
S. Sebastian, S. John Baptist, with two others, painted 
in the manner of Domenico Ghirlandajo : while at the 
top of the south aisle where the arches are still stained 
with frescoes, is a later picture of Madonna, not so 
lovely. Again, there is a fresco of the Presepio with 
saints and a bishop ; and then in the north aisle there 
is a magnificent triptych perhaps by Agnolo Gaddi, 
painted on gold, Madonna enthroned surrounded by 
many saints, and in the gradino a Pieta between six 
little figures of saints. 

Not far from S. Donnino is the little Oratorio of S. 
Gherardo, which possesses a small picture of the late 
fifteenth century of Madonna enthroned with her Son 
in her arms between S. Donnino and S. Gherardo ; 
while beneath the altar S. Gherardo himself lies 
buried. 

S. Gherardo da Villamagna, a hermit, was a Cavalier- 



VILLAMAGNA 179 

servente of the Holy and most Eminent Military Re- 
ligion of Jerusalem, now called of Malta, and a Tertiary 
of the Seraphic Order of S. Francis. Here truly among 
the cherry-trees we may well rest awhile in this high 
and beautiful place and consider his story, for indeed 
it deserves to be known. 

Villamagna, as one may easily see, for the ruins re- 
main, was once a castello, in the hands of that noble 
family dei Bartoli Filippi. Not far away, at a place 
called La Casellina, S. Gherardo was born about the 
year 11 74. His parents were labourers, Lavoratori 
de ter7'eniy in the service of the Signori Folchi, but 
when he was twelve years old he lost them both by 
the plague. Yet though his earthly father thus deserted 
him his Heavenly still held his hand, putting into the 
heart of Federigo Folchi, Knight of the Holy and Mili- 
tary Order of Jerusalem, that he should take care of 
him; and so it happened, for Signor Federigo took 
him to Florence, and there in his own house had him 
instructed in buo7ie arti and buoni coshtmt, as though 
he had been his own son. So he grew up, and pre- 
sently was put in command of all his patron's house, 
teaching others what he had learned, and ruling there. 

About this time one of the Folchi was about to set 
out for the Holy Land, and as it happened he invited 
Gherardo to go along with him, which he agreed to do 
very gladly, for indeed he had long wished to visit 
those Holy Places and especially Jerusalem, for already 
the dream of his life had fallen upon him. So they 
set out. After many adventures that good knight with 
his companions was taken by the Saracens at last and 
sold into slavery. Yet by the goodness of God after 
a time they were enabled to escape. Then they made 
pilgrimage to the Holy Places, and presently as God 
willed they returned safely to Villamagna. 

Now, by-and-by, fired by this tale, another young 



i8o COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

lord of the same stock would set out for Palestine, and 
nothing would do but that Gherardo should go with 
him : and he, when he heard it, consented gladly. So 
they went on their way. And it befell when they were 
well away that they encountered a Turkish ship greater 
far than their own, nor could they escape any way, for 
she bore down upon them. Then Gherardo, while 
they fought, prayed in the stern, and, as it proved, his 
prayers were stronger than the strength of the Infidel, 
for after a time the Turk drew off, and it was seen that 
more than fifty of his company were dead and more 
than seventy taken for slaves, such was the goodness 
of God, while but two Christians were killed and none 
captured. Then they came to our Gherardo, and low- 
born though he was, they gave him the Habit and the 
Cross of a Frate Cavalier-servente of the Holy and 
Military Religion of Jerusalem, now called of Malta. 
And he received the Rule and kept it ; when they were 
come ashore, assisting pilgrims and visiting the sick in 
the Spedali and praying daily for the affairs of the Re- 
ligion, so that, as his biographer tells us, molti pr ogres si 
fecero coniro degt Infedeli I Cavalieri. He remained 
in Syria for seven years in the service of the Religion, 
in which time he often visited the Holy Places, for he 
loved them. But at last he felt called upon to lead a 
more rigorous and a holier life, so obtaining leave from 
his Superior he returned to his fatherland, saving the 
ship in which he sailed from shipwreck on the voyage 
by his prayers, and bringing her at last safe and sound 
into the Tuscan sea. 

Now it happened as he came homeward that passing 
through Florence and stopping to see his friends he 
met S. Francesco there (it was the year 12 19), who 
seeing what manner of man he was gave him the Habit 
of his Third Order, which he had just instituted. In 
this new Habit, over which he wore the White Cross 



VILLAMAGNA i8i 

of the Knights of Malta, he returned to Villamagna, 
and there in a little hut began to live the life of a her- 
mit and a solitary, inviting the country-folk by his ex- 
ample as well as with words to repentance. In his 
solitude he beat himself so sore that surely, as his bio- 
grapher tells us, " it was a wonder human nature could 
stand it ". Some called him an angel come to Earth, 
others a new Antony, and others«again a modern Ilari- 
one. He fled conversation, especially that of women. 
He would visit the neighbouring churches, all of them 
far off, crawling the whole way on his knees, to S. 
Romola, for instance, to S. Bartolommeo della Quercia 
and S. Lorenzo a Vecchia. And this would have been 
impossible had not God, as his biographer assures us, 
hardened his knees, on which there grew great corns, 
which Brocchi^ tells us he saw when about 1751 the 
coffin of San Gherardo was opened. At last, however, 
in spite of himself his fame got abroad, a great crowd 
of women and men and boys and children would follow 
him to ask for his prayers, and he taught them and 
comforted them in their misfortunes. And he healed 
the sick too, and when a child at Monte Albano^ fell 
from a great height and was brought to him for dead 
he covered him with his handkerchief and on the follow- 
ing day restored him healed and well to his parents. 
Then one January he fell ill himself and was like to 
starve, but God made a cherry-tree close to his hut to 
bear fruit, his widowed sister bringing the cherries to 
him ; but when she returned to gather some for herself 
she found the tree bare. So it is always with a branch 

^ Brocchi is his biographer. See Vite de' Sanfi e Beati 
Fiorentitii, scritte dal Dottor Giuseppe Maria Brocchi, Protono- 
tario Apostolico Sacerdote e Accademico Fiorentino ed Etrusco 
(in Firenze, mdcclii.), torn i., parte ii., p. 258. A most de- 
lightful book written by one of the most simple and charming 
of Tuscan writers in the eighteenth century, 

2 Near Rovezzano. 



1 82 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

laden with cherries that the painters show him to us, 
for that miraculous fruit healed him. 

Beside the gift of healing, Gherardo had also the 
gift of prophecy. Seeing a lady one day leaving the 
confessional, he knew she had made a bad confession, 
and presently told her of a sin which for ten years she 
had hidden for shame : then he bade her return to the 
priest. And other things he knew more wonderful still, 
such as that which he foretold to the Mulattiere, to wit, 
that he would presently be drowned in Arno if he did 
not mend his ways, which surely happened. He also 
prophesied the suffering of the Church from Federico 
IL, and the scandals, wars, burnings, and sacrileges 
throughout Italy which lasted till the death of that 
Anti-Christ. Like S. Francesco too he tamed a wolf : 
for one day, returning from visiting some sick person 
in the company of a certain Luca del Pesca he met a 
wolf carrying away in its mouth a hen which belonged 
to a poor man of Villamagna, so he bade it return and 
render it again, and so it was. 

When he came to die being sick he was in the care 
of a Benedictine monk who had once been his con- 
fessor to whom he foretold the very day he would die, 
which happened on 13th May, 1242. Thus lived and 
thus died this Knight of Malta and Tertiary of the 
Order of S. Francis in the thirteenth century. His 
oratory remained under the Rule of the Knights till 
the Grand Dukes, as it is said, gave it into the custody 
of the Pievano of Villamagna. 

The way to the Incontro, that convent of Francis- 
cans on the hill-top, some fifteen hundred feet above 
the sea, where, as it is said, S. Gherardo built a little hut 
of stones and where in the beginning of the eighteenth 
century the Franciscans built a convent, is steep. And 
truly since the convent is modern there is but little to 



THE INCONTRO AND MIRANSU 183 

see there, and though the view is very wide and splen- 
did, it is not more lovely I think than that you see from 
Villamagna, therefore, if already you be a little weary, 
it will be well to go straight to Miransia. If, however, 
you go to the Incontro you will return to Poggio a 
Luco, that hill-top just behind S. Donnino di Villa- 
magna, where there is now a great villa and where once 
the Bartoli Filippi, as I have said, had their Fortezza. 

From S. Gherardo the road to the Incontro lies 
straight uphill till where the road forks you turn to the 
right, and at the next fork to the right again, and so 
winding through the woods, you come into the great 
Via Crucis that leads you to the convent gate. In all 
it is some forty minutes' walk from S. Gherardo. 

The way to Miransu from S. Gherardo is the same 
so far as the first fork, where you take the road to the 
left, coming in two hundred yards to Poggio a Luco, 
from which you descend slowly and with many wind- 
ings in something under an hour, keeping always to 
the left, to Miransia itself. And truly by this road who 
would wish to climb mountains, for after passing Poggio 
a Luco the world is so beautiful all the way that 
nothing could better it — those great wine-coloured 
hills of Vallombrosa, like vast precious stones, and yet 
softer than the bloom on the grapes, a miracle of glory. 

The little village of Miransia hidden away in a fold 
of the valley is one of the most charming of hill villages. 
It consists of some three or four houses, a big church, 
ancient too, and an old scarred tower once a small 
fortress of the Lords of Quona ; and as Messer Lapo 
da Castiglionchio wrote to his son Bernardo, it was 
sold by one of his ancestors, of the house of Tedaldo 
da Quona, to the Galli of Florence. The church, which 
is certainly as old as the year 1066, once had Cardinal 
Giovanni de' Medici for patron, he who was afterwards 
Leo X. To-day, deserted though it be by any such 



1 84 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

splendours, it still possesses marvellous things, only 
the Pievano, charming though he be and like the ma- 
jority of Tuscan village priests, a good fellow at heart, 
has thought and dreamed so long of his treasures that 
in mortal fear of robbers he is likely to refuse you ad- 
mittance unless you can persuade him. 

I shall not easily forget the day I came there. It 
was already afternoon, and, a little tired in the sun, I 
rang at the canonica bell in good hope of a rest in the 
cool church and perhaps a cup of wine, for I knew the 
vintage of Miransu of old. 

Presently, as I waited, a little round window beside 
the door opened, and a girl, pretty as an angel — a dark 
angel truly — demanded who I was and what I wished. 

" To see the church," said I — "that is, if it does not 
incommode the Signorina." 

She said softly, " I will bring my brother ". 

Again I waited in the sun, till presently the round 
look-out was opened again and a young priest looked 
at me and again demanded my business. 

" Can one, then, see your church ? " said I. " It is 
for that I am come." 

"Ah," said he smiling subtly and looking me up 
and down. " Ah, that will be impossible." 

" Impossible," said I in my hasty English way, for 
I knew what the church held ; " not at all impossible, 
Signor Padre — here is the church, here am I and there 
are you. Eccolo ! " 

"Signore," said he still regarding me, "these are 
sad days, robbers and rascals are everywhere. For 
yourself, of course, you are a galanfuomo, but . . . 
in short, Signore, you cannot see the church." 

" Signor Padre," said I, " I am a poor man, I could 
not buy your pictures even if I would — and believe me 
I would not if I could. I am nothing in this whole 
world but a poor devil of a writer. Your church holds 



MIRANSU 185 

many precious things, why then, being what I am, 
should I not see them ? " 

He smiled and smiled, but came not to the door. 
'* It will be impossible," said he. 

" Can it be," said I, looking over his shoulder past 
him at a shadow in the background, "can it be that 
a holy priest will refuse a poor man the shadow of his 
church? CAe, che, then indeed all they told me was 
true, there are no more Christians in Tuscany." 

"Signore," said he, " there are many robbers " 

but some one pulled at his cassock. 

"Signor Padre," said I, *'do robbers ring at the 
bell and beseech admittance, or come in some other 
way ? " 

And again some one pulled at his cassock and I 
heard a whisper. 

" No, no," said he quickly. " I have made the rule. 
It is impossible." 

" Signore," said I, " have the politeness to listen to 
me. I am not angry with you, but I am going to 
tell you the truth. It is true you are priest of this 
church Bxvdi pievano of this pieve, but as guardian of 
the pictures I would see, which, though I am sorry for 
it, are the property of the State, you are the servant of 
Italy whose guest I am. Suppose I go back to Flor- 
ence and tell the Signor Ricci — ah, you know him — 
that you here with your beautiful things wish to keep 
them all to yourself, how long do you think it will be 
before they are in the Uffizi Gallery, dead on the wall 
there in Florence ? If you are so afraid to lose them 
I had better " 

He came to the door and opened it. " Come in," 
said he. " You are Inglese, and your nation has the 
gift of obstinacy, who shall deny you anything without 
weariness? Enter. See what you will. Well, I my- 
self will guide you." 



1 86 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Donna Giulia, his sister, was all cheerfulness. So 
we went in together. 

Now these are the treasures I had fought so hard 
to see. An ancient triptych, divided now, of Madonna 
and Child, S. Lorenzo and S. Niccol6 di Bari, painted 
in gold in the manner of Lorenzo di Bicci. Then over 
an altar on the north side of the church a magnificent 
picture of the Crucifixion amid a host of saints, among 
them the Blessed Virgin, S. Maria Maddalena, S. 
Giovanni Evangelista, and S. Giovanni Battista; while 
in the gradino are five tondi filled with the half-length 
figures of saints. It is a marvellous and lovely work 
of the end of the fourteenth century, perhaps by Agnolo 
Gaddi, painted on gold. When I had looked my fill, 
they led me into their house and gave me a cup of 
their black wine, and we were friends. Then Donna 
Giulia, who I believe thought well of me, bethought her 
of another treasure and ran swiftly to fetch it. Pre- 
sently she laid in my hands a magnificent bronze 
Crucifix of Byzantine work, marvellously carved, on 
one side in outline, and with our Lord hanging on the 
Cross, a work in full relief, on the other. 

When I had thanked them again, I went on my 
way. 

The road to Rosano falls all the way from Miransu 
towards the valley. It is not easy to mistake it. You 
go through the wooded valley on the hillside, and ever 
before you Vallombrosa shines like some strange jewel 
in the sun. Presently, on your right, you pass the 
Castello of Castiglionchio. It was here lived that Lapo 
da Castiglionchio, the famous humanist, whom Petrarch 
met in Boccaccio's house. "Whom has our State 
ever produced," Coluccio Salutati wrote of him, •* more 
diligent in pursuit of our studies and of those which 
pertain to eloquence ? Which of the poets was un- 
known to him, nay, rather, which of them was not a 



ROSANO 187 

hackneyed writer to him ? Who was better versed in 
the works of Cicero ? Who more abundant in glean- 
ings from history? Who more deeply imbued with 
the precepts of moral philosophy ? Dio Mio ! How 
he abounded in sweetness and in weightiness of dis- 
course ; how ready he was in dictation or in setting 
himself to the task of writing." ^ 

There is little or nothing to see at Castiglionchio, 
and Rosano is still far. In some two miles, at San 
Prugnano, the road forks, you follow the way to the 
right round the church, where there is now nothing 
to see, all its treasures having been carried away to 
SS. Annunziata in Rosano. 

Once past San Prugnano the road drops swiftly into 
the plain, bringing you in some twenty minutes to 
Rosano itself. 

The Church of SS. Annunziata at Rosano belonged 
of old to a convent of Benedictine nuns built beside 
it. Founded, if we may believe the inscription still 
to be read over the door of the church, in 780, restored 
in 1523, the first time we find it mentioned is in a 
manuscript, 1015. The patrons of the convent were 
the Conti Guidi, Conte Guido dei Guidi giving the 
Abbess Berta many privileges in 1055. In 1068, how- 
ever, Conte Guido, son of the above with Contessa 
Emmellina his wife, was in Rosano when he renounced 
his rights in favour of the Monastery of Vallom- 
brosa. 

SS. Annunziata to-day, however, is a parish church, 
and possesses not only its own treasures, such as they 
are, but also the pictures, perhaps more precious from 
San Prugnano. There, behind the high altar, we find 
a beautiful triptych, painted in gold, an Annunciation 
in the midst, and on either side two saints, while 

^C/. also Vespasiano da Bisticci, ViU di Uomini Ilhistri 
(Firenze, 1859), P- 509* 



1 88 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

another painting, on gold too, is also of the Annuncia- 
tion. 

From Rosano it is but a step to the river and the 
ferry. Once on the northern shore it is a walk of 
nearly three-quarters of a mile, keeping to the right, 
upstream into Pontassieve, where truly there is little 
or nothing to see, the tower of Filicaja, held by the 
old family of that name, the bridge over the Sieve 
built by the famous Bartolommeo Ammannato in 1555, 
when the ancient bridge was washed away, as you may 
read if you will in the inscription there. 

COSM. MED. FLOR. REIP. DUX. II. 

HUNC PONTEM AB INGENTI AQUARUM INUNDATIONE 

MAGNA CUM LABE FUNDITUS EVERSUM RIFICIENDUM 

CURAVIT ANNO DOM. MDLV. 

And so by train to Florence. 



XI 



S. MARIA A CASTAGNOLO, CASTEL PULCI, 
S. MARTINO ALLA PALMA, MOSCIANO, 
S. MARIA A SCANDICCI, S. BARTOLO IN 
TUTO, S. GIUSTO A SIGNANO, LEGNAJA i 

T T is about an hour's ride in the tram from Mercato 
-■- Nuovo to Ponte di Stagno on the way to Signa. 
The way lies out of Porta S. Frediano across the plain 
of Florence under the hills where, after passing Casel- 
lina, S. Martino alia Palma first comes in sight, just 
a tower on the hillside, and then the great villa of 
Castel Pulci at the end of its long avenues in the 
midst of its gardens. You are free at last when the 
tram stops at the foot of a little bridge over the Vignone, 
Ponte di Stagno they call it, though Stagno is nearly 
a mile away to the south. Lingering there till the 
tram has lumbered out of sight and hearing, you wait 
beside a beautiful shrine of Madonna at the eastern 
end of the bridge, where Neri di Bicci painted, in 1453, 

^ Instead of going as described by tramway from Florence to 
Ponte di Stagno, it is less tedious to go to Signa by train and 
to walk thence through Lastra back along Via Pisana to S. 
Maria a Castagnolo, though it adds about two miles to the 
walk. In driving you would go straight to S. Maria a Castag- 
nolo along Via Pisana from Florence, then return to Via Pisana 
and continue back along it for a mile and a half when a road 
turns up on the right to S. Martino. After S. Martino the 
route given in the text may be followed. 
189 



190 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

for Luca d' Andrea di S. Columbano, all this wayside 
shrine, a chapel almost, where Madonna with our Lord 
in her arms waits to bless us, between S. Luke and S. 
John Baptist, S. Anthony and S. Andrew, herself 
blessed the while by the Eternal Father hovering there 
amid the cherubim. 

From this shrine it is but a little way to S. Maria a 
Castagnolo. For crossing the bridge and taking the 
first road to the left, you come to the church almost 
at once, set on a little platform above the way, among 
trees and vineyards. 

Like so many of the churches in this part of the 
Fiorentino, S. Maria a Castagnolo was under the 
patronage of the Conti Cadolinghi, those powerful 
nobles who founded the Badia a Settimo, and indeed 
there was a church here certainly as early as 1037. 
Nothing, however, remains from that time, the inter- 
est of the church to-day lying in a bas-relief of della 
Robbia ware of the fifteenth century, and in a beauti- 
ful triptych of the end of the fourteenth century, 
scattered once, but now gathered together behind the 
high altar. Madonna giving her girdle to S. Thomas, 
while on either side stand S. Augustine and S. 
Andrew, S. John Baptist and S. Antony. And this 
picture reminds us that in Tuscany every church 
which is called and spoken of simply as S. Maria is 
dedicated indeed to S. Maria Assunta. Thus the 
cathedrals of Pisa and Siena are dedicated to Madonna 
Assunta. The Feast of the Assumption throughout 
Central Italy ^ is indeed one of the great festivals in 
the year. On that day in old times Pisa ran her Palii 

^Many writers and travellers seem to imagine that Siena 
is alone in the honour she gives to S. Maria Assunta. Nothing 
could be farther from the truth. Not only in all Tuscany but 
throughout Umbria is that day held in the highest honour. 
Cf, Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), pp. 90-93. 



S. MARTINO ALL A PALM A 191 

and rowed them too, lit her bonfires and girdled her 
cathedral with gold and silver and precious stones ; 
on that day even now in Umbria and in Tuscany 
every village has its bonfire, every cottage its taper ; 
while in Siena they run the Palio of August, and 
on the top of Mont' Amiata the great beacon flames, 
not in honour of any earthly lord, but to the glory 
of her who is our Life, our Sweetness and our 
Hope. 

From S. Maria a Castagnolo we set out through the 
vineyards for S. Martino alia Palma on the hills. 
From the platform before the church we descend 
once more to the lane by which we came from Ponte 
di Stagno, and following it straight uphill presently 
come to a group of houses with a church, S. Ilario 
alia Capannuccia, keeping here to the right and then 
crossing a road that runs north and south past the 
church we continue on our way, in a few minutes 
crossing a little stream. Continuing thus uphill, pres- 
ently a farm-road to the left leaves the lane by which 
we have come. Following this between the vines in a 
few minutes we come to a house which we pass, leav- 
ing it on our right ; then turning sharply to the right 
we follow a road under a white vineyard wall, the wall 
of a terrace of vines. This road, bad at best, pres- 
ently becomes a path, it swerves sharply right and left 
through the vineyards ; and then just past some con- 
tadini houses we turn to the right into another road 
above a farm-house on the hilltop called Monte 
Cacioli,^ in ancient times a fortress of the Conti Cado- 
linghi of Fucecchio. Here Conte Lottario and his 
mother Contessa Gemma held court in 1006, and, as 
it is said, gave large gifts to the Badia a Settimo. 
Their descendant Ugo joined Roberto Tedesco, Vicar 

^See Janet Ross, Florentine Villas (Dent, 1904), p. 128, 



192 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of Tuscany under Henry HI., against the Florentines, 
who marched out and, storming Monte Cacioli, killed 
him. 

Following the road to the right in another half-mile 
you find yourself just above Castel Pulci, the great 
villa that is such a land-mark from the Via Pisana. 
Long and long before Luigi Pulci was to make the 
name immortal, the Pulci owned very large posses- 
sions in Val d'Arno. The first record we have of 
them dates ^ from 1278, when Jacopo di Rinaldi Pulci 
was denounced to the Captain of the Guelfs in Flor- 
ence for failing to keep the pescaja near Ponte a 
Signa in proper repair. His son Mainetto sold this 
pescaja to the monks of Badia a Settimo, who in 13 13 
bought an island in the river from Giovanni and Pon- 
zardo Pulci, the sons of Mainetto. In 132 1 the 
family failed, their lands and houses, together with 
this villa, passing to Cardinal Napoleone Orsini, one of 
their creditors. His heirs sold the place to the Mar- 
chese Rinuccini, and so it v/as not here, but in Flor- 
ence, that Luigi, the author of the Mo?'gante called 
Maggiore, was born on the Feast of the Assumption 
in 1432. 

After leaving Castel Pulci, at the first fork, keep to 
the right downhill till, coming into the high road, you 
follow to the left, turning in a few yards uphill to the 
right, when, after a steep climb, you find yourself in 
front of the church of S. Martino alia Palma. 

S. Martino alia Palma stands on the summit of a 
group of hills called Romola. From the platform, 
the portico that half surrounds the church, you may 
see all the Florentine plain from Signa and Prato to 
Monte Morello and Florence herself, where the hills 
close her in, and in the midst of this ample valley, far 
and far below you, you may spy out Badia a Settimo. 

iRepetti, op. cit., vol. i., p. 508. 



S. MARTINO ALLA PALMA 193 

It was in the tenth century that S. Martino alia 
Palma was founded, perhaps by the Cadolinghi ; and 
certainly at that time it was under their patronage. 
Not for long, however, for it was one of these, perhaps 
Marchese Bonifazio, who gave the church with that 
of S. Donato a Lucardo and other lands to the mon- 
astery there in the plain, Badia a Settimo. In 988 
the gift was confirmed by Conte Adimaro, his son, and 
later by the Emperor Henry I. in a diploma dated 
1015, and finally by the Pope, Gregory IX., in a bull 
given in Viterbo on 6th October, 1237. Thus S. 
Martino was for centuries served and ruled by a 
Cistercian monk, till, indeed, the suppression of the 
Badia in 1785, when it became a parish church. Its 
interest for us to-day, however, beautiful and ancient 
though it be, is chiefly on account of the very lovely 
picture which stands over the altar in the north aisle. 
It is an early painting, perhaps by Agnolo Gaddo, 
perhaps by some earlier follower of Giotto, of Madonna 
with our Lord in her arms, we see there, certainly 
one of the most exquisite Giottesque pictures left in 
the churches of Tuscany. Nor is this all, for in the 
chancel is a fine fifteenth century ciborium with angels 
in low relief, and under the name in great capital 
letters DONATELLVS F. added, as it seems, by a 
later hand. 

Here on the top of this beautiful range of hills, 
scarcely more than six hundred feet above the sea, the 
whole Florentine world seems spread out before you. 
Far away to the left Signa stands on her hill-top, then 
to the north and west of her the valley passes, and 
across the valley at the foot of the great mountains 
little Prato lurks and Calenzano, while far away over 
these hills rise the faint peaks of the Carrara Moun- 
tains, like some beautiful shadow in the sun of after- 
noon. To the north Monte Morello is piled up into 
13 



194 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

heaven with a beautiful sure gesture of domination, 
and beside her, eastward, rise the Lower Apennines, 
Monte Senario and the rest, with Fiesole and Monte 
Ceceri in the true east over the City of Flowers. And, 
as it seems to me, it is not any profound emotion 
that is stirred by the gesture of these hills ; their 
beauty and meaning are rather intellectual than moral. 
This valley was ordained, it might seem, for the resur- 
rection of man, and it is just that which is expressed 
in the hills here, and in the city itself which they 
crown, while she stands in the valley waiting sunrise 
or sunset among the mountains. 

Leaving Villa Torrigiani, which, not older than the 
fifteenth, is for the most part a building of the sixteenth 
century, our way lies to the left. The road from this 
point climbs gently, really almost on a level, past 
several groups of houses, Casa dei Frati they call one 
of them. In something under a mile we pass a good 
road to the left leading down into the plain, and 
by that way you may come to Legnaja in about an 
hour and a half. Passing on, however, in half a mile 
we come to another road on the left, and taking it 
in another half mile find ourselves in Mosciano. The 
old fortress has here too become just a towered villa, 
but it is not there as it happens that the interest of 
this tiny village lies, but in its church, S. Andrea, 
that stands on the left of the road to Legnaja, which 
we follow, S. Paolo being on the right. Few collegiate 
churches can be older than S. Andrea in all Tuscany. 
Standing there certainly in the eleventh century, the 
canons lived under the rule of a provost, privi- 
leged in 1054 by Gherardo, Bishop of Florence, not 
without the hearty concurrence of Pope Nicholas II. 
A century later they adopted the rule of S. Augustine, 
and their superior was thereafter called Priore. After 
this we hear nothing more of them till they lose their 



S. BARTOLO IN TUTO 195 

individuality in the fifteenth century, when Eugenius IV. 
— sixteen years after his predecessors had given the 
Augustinian canons of S. Salvatore the Church of S. 
Donato a Scoperto — in a brief signed in Bologna in 
October, 1436, invested the Priorato of S. Andrea a 
Mosciano with the Canonica of S. Donato. 

From S. Andrea the road winds quickly down into 
the valley, crossing the Vignone at the foot of the hills. 
From there it is about half a mile to S. Maria a 
Scandicci, to reach which you turn to the left at the 
Quattro Madonne, four shrines at the corners of the 
cross roads. If S. Maria a Scandicci cannot claim the 
fame of S. Andrea a Mosciano, it is nevertheless very 
old, so old that, -as it is said, the Contessa Willa gave 
it with the rest of her lands at Scandicci to the Badia 
of Florence in the tenth century. The members of 
the Badia then became rectors of the church, ruled 
there with a brief interval, in the thirteenth century, 
till in the seicento it became just a parish church. Very 
little remains of value or beauty there. In the sacristy 
are some quite ruined Giottesque frescoes, and in the 
church itself, a tabernacle with a statue of Madonna 
and Child in the coloured terra-cotta of the della 
Robbia. 

Close by at the end of the road opposite the doors of 
S. Maria, is the little church of S. Bartolo in Tuto, 
founded, as it is said, by the Conti Cadolinghi, yet it too 
came not into the hands of the monks of Settimo like 
so many of the possessions of the Conti Cadolinghi, 
but, as it seems, into those of the Badia of Florence. 
A beautiful picture on a gold ground of the Virgin and 
Child, by some late fourteenth century painter, stands 
almost hidden over the altar on the north, while over 
the altar to the south is a fine picture, perhaps by 
Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, of a Pieta surrounded by many 
saints. This last work, however, is so difficult to see 



196 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

that it may well be I am mistaken even in its sub- 
ject. 

Returning to the highway, we follow it, crossing the 
Greve, and then at the first turning on the left, leave 
the highway for the church of S. Giusto a Signano, 
where we may still find one of the loveliest of those 
Giottesque pictures, which are the joy of these villages 
outside the city. Here is no Jesus with a bleeding 
heart for your worship, but our very Lady herself, on 
a throne of jasper with her little Son in her arms, 
a thing which Catholic or infidel all the world may wor- 
ship for its humanity and beauty. By her side stand 
two angels, and behind S. Peter and S. Paul. No 
lovelier thing is to be found in the by-ways about 
Florence, and then, as it happens, it is with that in 
your heart, you must go into Legnaja, to the tram- 
way, through a veritable slum. But for me, I saw 
nothing, since in my heart was the best of all. 



XII 



POGGIO A CAJANO, CARMIGNANO, ARTI- 
MINO, S. MINIATO A SIGNA ^ 

THE way by tram to the great Medici Villa of 
Poggio a Cajano leaves the Piazza della Stazione 
Centrale, and passing out of the city by the Porta al 
Prato crosses the Terzolle at Ponte alle Mosse,^ follow- 
ing the Strada Pistoiese through Peretola, Quaracchi, 
Brozzi, S. Donnino to S. Pietro a Ponti, where it crosses 
the Bisenzio, to La Querce, where it crosses the Vig- 
none, coming, after rather more than eight miles' 
journey, to the little town of Poggio a Cajano on the 
other side of the river Ombrone, where the great villa 
stands, a little hemmed in now by houses, its gardens 
still washed by the tawny waters of that famous stream. 
Long before Florence was heard of, so they say, a 
certain Roman, Cajus by name, built a villa in this 
place, and certainly long before Salvestro de' Medici 
made a name for himself the Conti Cadolinghi of 
Fucecchio in the tenth century owned poderi here, 

^ The way described can be followed throughout in a carriage. 
The drive, by reason of the distance of Poggio a Cajano from 
Florence, will occupy a whole day. The way to Poggio a Cajano 
by tram is long and wearisome, occupying as it does more than 
an hour, but the villa is well worth seeing and the walk so fine 
that it is worth the initial boredom. 

2 For Ponte alle Mosse and the route, so far as S. Donnino, 
see pp. 72-89. 

197 



198 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

which later seem to have passed in part to the monks 
of S. Bartolommeo in Pistoja and part to the Cancel- 
lieri of that city. It is, however, to Lorenzo de' 
Medici who acquired the property of the latter that 
Poggio a Cajano owes its fame. ^ The Cancellieri 
had a castle there, as it seems, and it was this which 
Lorenzo bought with the lands about it, giving 
Giuliano da Sangallo the commission to destroy the 
ruin and to build for him instead the magnificent villa 
which we see to-day. It was finished in 1485, the 
beautiful outside staircase being the later work of 
Stefano di Ugolino Senese. In those days the villa 
was known as Ambra, taking its name perhaps from a 
small island in the stream which Lorenzo turned into 
a paradise of flowers. It became indeed his favourite 
place of villeggiatura and, as it happens, the scene of 
one of his best poems, those verses, so full of "impres- 
sionism," of quite modern observation, which, with the 
Nencia da Barberino, prove him the greatest poet of 
his time. 

The " Ambra " is in its opening, at any rate, just a 
description infinitely delicate and full of detail of " the 
season of floods ". After some verses of somewhat 
careful preparation, almost artificial in their precision, 
their cunningly arranged pictures, we come suddenly, 
for all his careful suggestions, on a real " impressionist " 
picture of the river itself when it is angry. How little 
has escaped those weary eyes ; all the eagerness of those 
lost senses of his seem to have passed into them so 
that he can see evil and good alike and find the beauty, 
the necessity of both. In a single night the flood 
comes. At dusk Ombrone was but a shallow and 
broken stream, and all you might hear just the singing 
of the water over the stones, the wind among the reeds. 
But now in the morning it is a huge whirling mass of 
waters flecked with foam and bearded too, a swirling, 



POGGIO A CAJANO 199 

tossing yellow devil bent on destruction. And it comes 
out of the cold white vapour of the hills and is lost in 
the ghostly fog of the plain. Swiftly it is eating away 
the banks ; on its bosom it bears great branches — 
whole trees too and even cottages, and these, in its 
terror and malice, it hurls against the bridges to split 
them and destroy them, till, as it eats its way into the 
embankment, tearing away the stones and the mud, 
great fissures appear, and suddenly the river rushes into 
the fields, the little houses of the peasants, yes, and 
into the town itself. Nor is Lorenzo without pity too, 
he who so often has stood aside and piped for others' 
dancing, for others' tears. 

Appena e suta a tempo la villana 
Pavida a aprir alle bestie la stalla : 
Porta il figlio, che piange, nella zana : 
Segue la figlia grande, ed ha la spalla 
Grave di panni vili lini e lana : 
Va I'altra vecchia masserizia a galla, 
Nuotano i porci e spaventati i buol ; 
Le pecorelle non si tosam poi. 

Alcun della famiglia s' e ridotto 

In cima della casa ; e su dal tetto 

La povera ricchezza vede ir sotto, 

La fatica, la speme ; e per sospetto 

Di se stesso non duolsi e non fa motto ; 

Teme alia vita il cor nel tristo petto, 

Ne di quel ch' e piu car par conto faccia : 

Cosi la maggior cura ogni altra caccia. 

Poggio a Cajano, so much loved by Lorenzo, became 
indeed the favourite country-house of the Medici family. 
Lorenzo himself had built there, by the hand of San- 
gallo, the great dining-hall under a single vault, which, 
Vasari tells us, was " the largest vault ever seen till 
now " ; he had laid out the gardens and filled the saloni 
with the finest pictures of the fifteenth century. 



200 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

It was, however, Leo X., the first Medici Pope, 
who employed Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio and 
Pontormo to decorate the great hall with frescoes to 
represent the glories of his house. There Andrea has 
painted " Egypt sending Gifts to Caesar," an allegory 
of those gifts which the Sultan sent to Lorenzo ; Fran- 
ciabigio has painted " Cicero Returning from Exile," in 
which we are to see the return of Cosimo de' Medici to 
Florence in 1434; while Pontormo in the two best fres- 
coes in the room, if we except his exquisite lunette op- 
posite the windows, has painted " The Banquet given 
by Syphax to Scipio," representing the welcome given 
to Lorenzo by the King of Naples, and " Titus Fla- 
minius Rejecting the Ambassadors of Antiochus," in 
which we see Lorenzo's victory at the Diet of Cremona. 
Pontormo here and at Carmignano, too, is really a 
great painter. " He had it in him," says Mr. Berenson, 
" to be a decorator and portrait painter of the highest 
rank " ; if he was sometimes led away by his " awe- 
struck admiration for Michelangelo," and moved as 
" an academic constructor of monstrous nudes," here, 
certainly, he is just himself, the one really first-rate 
artist who was trained in the school of Michelangelo. 

It was not only the earlier Medici, however, Lorenzo 
and his successors, who loved Poggio a Cajano, but 
the Grand Dukes also. " On 17th day of May, 1527," 
writes Varchi, ^ "at eighteen o'clock, the Medici, that 
is the Cardinal Ippolito and Alessandro, left Flor- 
ence accompanied by Conte Piero Noferi and others, 
and there were many who said, as they rode down Via 
Larga, which was crowded with people, that they would 
one day repent letting them thus depart alive. They 
went, full of fear, to Poggio a Cajano, that villa of 

^ Milanesi, Varchi Storia Fiorentina (Firenze, 1888). See 
also the charming study of Poggio a Cajano by Janet Ross in 
Florentine Villas (Dent, 1901), pp. 8-15. 



POGGIO A CAJANO 201 

theirs so large and so magnificent. . . . Hardly had 
they left Florence when the people ran to rob their 
houses, and only with great difficulty could Niccolo 
Capponi and other good men hold the mob back and 
save the houses ; and the next day, when, I know not 
how, the news spread that the Pope was come out of 
Castel Sant' Angelo, it was said that the Medici with 
a great following of foot and horse were about to re- 
enter Florence, and Lodovico Martelli publicly affirmed 
under the Loggia de' Signori that from his place, Le 
Gore, they had been seen at Careggi, that villa of 
theirs two miles out of Florence ; and although, not 
so much because he was a Martelli, and they are gener- 
ally untrustworthy, as because he was looked on as 
the sworn follower of his brother-in-law Luigi Ridolfi, 
small reliance was placed on his word, nevertheless in 
a few hours, this being repeated, there rose such a 
hubbub in Florence that (this by now was become a 
daily custom) the shops and gates were closed. News 
of the rising was taken by Nibbio, who helped by fear, 
left Florence in hot haste and returned to Poggio to 
the Cardinal and the Magnificent, besides which friends 
wrote to warn them and enemies to frighten them that 
Piero Salviati was preparing to start with two hundred 
bowmen on horseback : all this so alarmed the Car- 
dinal that he, with the others, left at once ... for 
Pistoja." 

As we know, two years later there followed the great 
siege, but seven years after that, in May, 1536, Charles 
V. was at Poggio with the bastard Alessandro de' 
Medici. Seeing the beauty and strength of the place 
he turned to his host and remarked that " such walls 
were not meant to hold a private citizen," and, indeed, 
before he went to Lucca Alessandro was Duke of 
Florence. 

Three years later, on 24th July, 1539, Cosimo I./ 



202 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Duke of Florence then,^ and his wife Eleanora of 
Toledo, spent a week at Poggio on their way to enter 
Florence from Pisa. In 1565 their son Francesco met 
his bride, poor little Joan of Austria, here. Poggio a 
Cajano was to be the favourite residence of his mistress, 
the famous, unfortunate, and beautiful Bianca Cappello. 
Almost the last words Joan of Austria said to her 
husband on her deathbed were a prayer that he would 
give up this beautiful, distracting woman. He wept 
and swore he would do as she wished, but some two 
months later he married her in spite of his oaths. 

The only daughter of a great Venetian house, Bianca 
Cappello, while she was still a girl, had been lured away 
to Florence by a certain Pietro Buonaventura, a clerk 
employed in the Florentine bank of Salviati that in 
Venice stood opposite her house. With this young 
Fiorentino she supposed herself to be in love, so that 
with the help of her maid she used to visit him, till 
one night when she returned she found her door locked, 
and supposing she had been discovered, and persuaded 
by Buonaventura, she fled with him to Florence. 
Now the Buonaventura were very poor and lived in 
Piazza S. Marco ; moreover, Pietro's mother, being 
anything but pleased to have him on her hands again 
with a wife to keep, set Bianca to do all the work of 
the house, and indeed she had a miserable life. About 
this time, as it is said, Mondragone, Francesco de* 
Medici's Spanish tutor, spied out the girl and spoke of 
her to his pupil, who, often passing that way, saw her 
and immediately sought how he might possess himself 
of her, for indeed she was very handsome. Nor was 
Mondragone slow to help him, for he got his own wife 
to persuade Bianca and her mother-in-law to visit her 

^ It was not till 1569 that Cosimo I. was declared Grand Duke 
of Tuscany by Pio V. 



POGGIO A CAJANO 203 

at her palace^ where Francesco awaited her. Har- 
assed as she was by her own family, who sought to kill 
her, and bullied by the family of her husband which 
worked her day and night, she asked Francesco for 
protection, which only too willingly he gave her. So 
begins the story of their love which was to end so dis- 
astrously. Later Francesco bought Palazzo Rucellai 
for her, together with its beautiful gardens. There, 
Joan of Austria being dead, one morning Pietro 
Buona Ventura was found murdered in a little passage 
close to Via del Presto. It seems that he was intrigu- 
ing with a certain Cassandra Ricci, who was loved also 
by one of the Cavalcanti. So Buonaventura, grown 
impudent at his rise in the world, which he owed to his 
own dishonour, had this Cavalcanti murdered and soon 
gained his desire with regard to Cassandra. One of 
her relations, resenting the impudence of this upstart, 
won the consent of the Grand Duke to his murder, 
nor did Cassandra escape, for on the following night 
she was killed also. Then Francesco de' Medici 
married his mistress, Bianca Cappello, and the Re- 
public of Venice declared her daughter of S. Mark. 
Bianca, instead of being frightened or appalled at all 
this bloodshed on her account, seems rather to have 
gained in confidence. She grew ambitious and called 
her brother Vittorio from Venice to be Francesco's 
adviser, till the Medici grew so angry that the Grand 
Duke was obliged to send him off. Nothing, however, 
seems to have disturbed the happiness of the two lovers 
who were altogether wrapped up in each other. 

Now about this time Cardinal Ferdinando, the 
brother of Francesco, disappointed of the Papacy, 
turned his cunning thoughts towards the Grand Duchy. 

^ This was the palace at the corner of Via de' Banchi and Via 
del Giglio, close to Via Rondinelli. 



204 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

In October, 1587, he came to Florence, where he was 
very well received, and immediately he, with his brother 
and the Grand Duchess, whom he, in common with the 
rest of the family, bitterly hated, went for the shooting 
to Poggio a Cajano. On the eighth of that month the 
Grand Duke was attacked by illness : two days later 
the Grand Duchess also fell ill, as it seems, of the 
same malady. Various rumours began to spread 
about as to these strange illnesses, some saying that 
the cardinal had poisoned them, which seems, indeed, 
likely enough, and others that the Grand Duke had 
eaten too many mushrooms ; the Pope even wrote 
him a homily on the subject. 

" To put an end to the various rumours in circula- 
tion a statement was sent to Rome on i6th October," 
says Galluzzi, " setting forth that the Grand Duke has 
a double tertian fever and incessant thirst ; at present 
everything points towards his restoration to health, as 
the fourth and seventh days have been easy with 
abundant sweats, and we hope to go from good to 
better. But there must be no excess, and the approach 
of autumn makes us fear the malady will be a long one. 
Cause therefore prayers to be said, all the more that 
the Grand Duchess has almost the same sickness, and 
this increases the malady of the Grand Duke because 
she cannot attend on him." 

"On the ninth day," writes Galluzzi again, ^ "the 
illness of the Grand Duke augmented and the fever 
was not purged by two bleedings. It increased and 
breathlessness came on, so that he died on the night of 
the 19th October. He had always insisted on treat- 
ing himself according to his own fashion as to food 
and iced drinks, and as he was devoured by ardent 
thirst during the whole course of illness, it was thought 

1 Quoted by Mrs. Ross, op.cit., p. 12. See Galluzzi, Istoria 
del Granducatodi Toscana, vol. iv., p. 54 et seq. 



POGGIO A CAJANO 205 

that he died burnt up by the heating meats and drinks 
in which he always immoderately indulged. In the 
post-mortem examination the chief seat of the mal- 
ady was found to be the liver ; this gave him a bad di- 
gestion and a harshness of the stomach which led him 
to indulge in elixirs and such-like drinks for comfort. 
When the Grand Duke felt that death was near he 
called his brother, the cardinal, to his bedside, and 
after begging his pardon for past events, gave him the 
pass-word for the fortresses and ordered the militia and 
the troops to be called under arms. As soon as Fran- 
cesco was dead, Cardinal Ferdinando left Poggio a 
Cajano for Florence in order to be on the spot if any 
disorders occurred, but before leaving he paid a visit 
to the Grand Duchess Bianca, and ordered that her 
husband's death should be kept from her. He tried 
to comfort her with hopes of a speedy recovery and 
consigned her to the care of Bishop Abbioso, her 
daughter Pellegrina and her son-in-law Ulisse Benti- 
voglio. Her illness was less severe than that of the 
Grand Duke, but she was weakened by former mala- 
dies and by the violent medicines she had taken in 
the hope of bearing children. The outrageous noise, 
the trampling of many feet and the tearful eyes of 
those about her made her aware of what had happened ; 
she lost consciousness and died at eighteen o'clock on 
the 20th October." 

The cardinal, now the Grand Duke, after ordering 
that a post-mortem examination should be made of her 
body in the presence of witnesses, nor did he spare 
her daughter this ordeal, buried her, not in any tomb 
of the Medici, but in the crypt of S. Lorenzo in such 
a manner that no remembrance of her should remain. 
Everything he did concerning her was mean and 
petty. His hatred of her was quite strong enough to 
have caused him to poison both her and her husband, 



2o6 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

though it seems to be established that in fact he did 
not. Wherever her arms were quartered with those 
of his house he defaced them and substituted those of 
Joan of Austria, nor would he allow her to be named 
before him as Grand Duchess, but "insisted on her 
being repeatedly described as the abominable Bianca ". 
Having thus got rid at one stroke, as it were, of the 
Grand Duke and Duchess, he proceeded to enjoy the 
Grand Duchy. Disappointed in his hope of the 
Papacy, with Tuscany in his grasp, he threw off his 
ecclesiastical vows, and as though to make as much as 
he could of a life he had begun by vowing to despise, 
about a year after his brother's death he married 
Cristina of Lorraine. She arrived at Poggio a Cajano 
where Ferdinando I. met her on the evening of the 
28th April, 1589. She was but sixteen at the time, 
and almost beautiful, as she seems to have been, with 
charming manners, she soon won all hearts. It is 
said, and we do not wonder at it, that she never loved 
Poggio a Cajano ; the only thing that surprises us is 
that Ferdinando can have enjoyed meeting his bride 
in a place so recently the scene of a double tragedy. 
Perhaps the suspicions people attached to him with 
regard to it caused him boldly to appoint the very 
scene of the supposed murder for his wedding- feast. 
Though Poggio a Cajano continued to be used 
now and then as a shooting-box or a country plea- 
saunce by the Grand Ducal house, its great days 
seem to have ended with Ferdinando I. To-day it is a 
mere show palace, such rooms as have been used by 
the present royal house, Vittorio Emmanuele and his 
morganatic wife, being decorated and furnished in the 
truly frightful manner we have been taught to expect. 

The way to Carmignano, the way of our walk, 
leaves the highway exactly opposite the entrance to 



CARMIGNANO 207 

Poggio a Cajano. After leaving the last houses of 
the little town it winds for about three miles through 
the vineyards and the olives across the plain of the 
Ombrone, up the lower slopes of Montalbano to Car- 
mignano on its hill under the old Castello of the 
Pistolesi. All this territory belonged once to the 
Bishop of Pistoja. It was given to him by Otto III. 
in 998, and by the middle of the twelfth century cer- 
tainly the Pistolesi had built the fort there, the re- 
mains of which, of it and its descendants, we see 
to-day. 

"In the year of Christ 11 54," writes Giovanni 
Villani,^ "the Pratesi and the Pistolesi made war one 
upon another for the castello of Carmignano, and 
there the Pratesi with their troops, though helped by 
Florence, were defeated by the Pistolesi." 

And again : — 

"In the year of Christ 1228, when Messer Andrea 
of Perugia was Podesta of Florence, the Florentines 
led an army against Pistoia with the carroccio, and this 
was because the Pistolesi were making war against 
Montemurlo, and ill-treating it; and the said host 
laid waste the country round about the city up to the 
suburbs, and destroyed the towers of Montefiore 
which were very strong ; and the fortress of Carmig- 
nano surrendered to the Commonwealth of Florence. 
And note that upon the rock of Carmignano there 
was a tower seventy cubits high and thereupon two 
arms in marble, whereof the \\dM^'s> facevano le coma a 
Firenze ; wherefore the artificers of Florence, when 
they wished to express contempt for money or any- 
thing else offered to them, used to say : * I cannot see 
it, for the fortress of Carmignano is in the way'. 
And the Pistolesi hereupon agreed to whatever terms 

iVillani, Cronica, lib. iv., cap. 38. 



2o8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the Florentines might devise, and caused the said for- 
tress of Carmignano to be destroyed." ^ 

The century, however, was not dead before the 
Pistolesi rebuilt their rocca, and in the first years of the 
fourteenth century it came into the hands of a certain 
Morsciatto Franzesi by a gift of Charles of Valois. 
Morsciatto, however, after the surrender of Pistoja in 
1306, sold the rocca of Carmignano to Florence, who 
threw it down and retained the territory. In 1325 
Castruccio Castracani took the place, and, rebuilding 
the rocca^ fortified it with walls and battlements and 
ditches, and it in some sort became his headquarters 
through that war. In September, 1328, Castruccio 
being dead, the Florentines took heart again, and at- 
tacking the place with 5,000 infantry and 800 horse 
took it after eight days. It was then decided not to 
throw down the fortress but rather to strengthen it for 
fear of another enemy of the Republic, Lodovico il 
Bavaro, and the whole territory became permanently 
Florentine. 

Carmignano to day is a small town set in a shoulder 
of the hill, many feet below the old rocca, which, with 
the village about it, is still known as Castello. The 
view is magnificent thence, but there is little else to 
be seen. In the town below, where four streets meet 
in the midst of it, there is another fine view, of Tizzana 
to the north-west, which Hawkwood took, and of 
Pistoja itself, and little Prato too, while to the south 
rises the dark and splendid hill of Artimino with the 
great villa on the summit and the village among the 
trees. On the further outskirts of the town stands 
the Church of S. Michele with the old Franciscan 
convent. It is a beautiful old place with a fine 
cloister, and the church still keeps a small but fine 

^Villani, Cronica, lib. vi., cap. 5. 



ARTIMINO 209 

fragment of a Giottesque altar-piece, an Annuncia- 
tion; while over the altar on the south side is an 
extraordinary and beautiful picture by Pontormo, a 
Visitation, in which Madonna and S. Elizabeth are ac- 
companied by two others, perhaps S. Anna and some 
" daughter of Aaron ". It is like a dance of Graces or 
Fates — full of a beautiful rhythm and strange colours 
and laugTiter and tears. The four women stand there 
like four roses swaying in the wind and the sun. The 
church must once, it seems, have possessed several 
very lovely things, of which these, with the huge S. 
Antonio in the north transept, an old picture quite 
spoiled by repainting, are all that remain to her. 

From S. Michele you return quite through the 
town on the way you have come from Poggio a 
Cajano, till just beyond the last house the road forks 
and you take the way downhill to the right, coming 
in little more than a mile to La Serra. Here the 
road forks again, and again you take the way to the 
right, coming in half a mile to Le Termine and 
another fork. Here, too, you take the road to the 
right into the valley of the Elzana, and in another half 
mile you find yourself right under the height of Arti- 
mino. From here by almost any path through the 
vineyards you may in some three-quarters of an hour 
reach the Ciina and the Castello of Artimino ; but if 
you prefer the road, and though it is longer it is more 
interesting, where the road forks in the valley under 
Artimino, turn to the right and then in a hundred 
yards turn to the left, and follow round the lower slopes 
of the mountain through Fonte to Le Vergine, half a 
mile under S. Martino in Campo. Though there is 
not a single work of art to see all the way from Car- 
mignano to Artimino, the work of Nature is so fine 
that indeed one comes to think little of churches and 
cities. All this country is quite unknown, not only to 

14 



210 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the traveller but to the Florentine, and yet it is per- 
haps the wildest and the most beautiful within reach 
of the city. 

S. Martino in Campo, scarcely worth the trouble of 
a visit, but very picturesque on her hillside, was first 
a simple church, later a Benedictine Abbey, and is now 
just a church again. From the cross roads at Le 
Vergine, the way to the left leads you in half an hour 
to the little half-romanesque church of S. Leonardo a 
Artimino. Here again there is little or nothing to 
see, only just above the church and still in part sur- 
rounded by its old walls, its ancient lofty gates still 
guarding it, you find the Castello of Artimino. 

The great hill of Artimino, a bastion of Monte 
Albano, thrusts itself like a huge battering-ram into 
the valley of the Arno, forming, with the hills on the 
other side of the river, the Gonfolina Pass, through 
which Arno rushes from the plain of Florence to the 
plain of Empoli. Certain Roman remains, bronze 
images, urns, coins and such, serve to remind us that 
even in Sulla's day Artiminius, as it was then called, 
was of some importance, for Cicero tells us that that 
general had proclaimed it public property in order to 
divide it among his soldiers.^ 

It is, however, in the tenth century when Otto III. 
gave Artimino to Antonino, Bishop of Pistoja, that the 
mediaeval history of the place begins. After that Im- 
perial gift, till 1204, the people of Artimino seem to 
have enjoyed a considerable amount of political inde- 
pendence, perhaps they were few and their castello of 
but little importance. However that may be, so soon 
as war began between Florence and Pistoja their story 
is the same as that of the people of Carmignano. 

^ Cicero in his nineteenth epistola to Atticus. Cf. also G. L. 
Passerini, Artiminius (Parma, 1888), p. 14 et seq., and Janet 
Ross, op. cit., pp. 148-52. 



ARTIMINO 211 

" When the Florentines invaded the lands of Artimino 
it seemed as though a tempest had swept over the land, 
leaving vines, olives, and fruit-trees broken under its 
passing." ^ There followed a quarrel with Carmignano 
so that " hardly a day passed without bloodshed ". In 
1228, as we have seen, the Florentines "with the 
carroccio " went out against the Pistolesi and took 
Carmignano : and, as I have said, her fate but pro- 
phesied Artimino's. It happened in Castruccio's 
wars when, "not content with taking two murdered 
prisoners, the Florentines threw down part of the cas- 
tello and carried home in triumph the bell of the 
Commune, which was of great size and of most 
exquisite metal ".^ After Altopascio Castruccio got 
the place, but when in 1228 he died, Florence re- 
turned. 

"For three days," says Villani, "the people of 
Artimino fought against their enemies, but on the third 
the Florentines delivered the most terrible assault that 
ever fortress suffered in which the most renowned 
knights of the army were engaged. It lasted from 
mid-day till the first hour of the night [one hour after 
sunset] and the pallisades and gates of the castle were 
set on fire. For which reason great fear fell on the 
besieged and on those who were badly wounded by 
the darts, so that they begged for mercy and offered 
to surrender if their lives were spared : and so it was 
done. And in the morning of 27th August they left 
and delivered up the castello ; but in spite of all pro- 
mises, when the knights who escorted them departed, 
many were murdered." 

Thus Artimino came into the possession of Florence, 
and though several skirmishes followed on account of 

^ Salvi, St. delta Cittd di Pisfoja (Roma, 1656), torn, i., p. 
249. 

2 Janet Ross, op. cit., p. 150. 



212 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

it with the Pistolesi, her dominion there was never 
again seriously questioned. 

But if the castello speaks to us of these mediaeval 
days of fighting, it is of a milder and less splendid time 
that the great villa on the farther peak reminds us. It 
is Baldinucci,^ that "pleasant gossip," who tells me 
the tale. 

" His Majesty Ferdinando I., Grand Duke of Tus- 
cany, being one day a-hunting on the hill of Artimino 
(on the side towards Florence where one looks upon 
a lovely and most extensive tract of country), seated 
himself on a chair and calling Buontalenti to his side, 
he said : ' Bernardo, just on this spot where thou 
seest me, I desire to have a palace sufficient to con- 
tain me and all my court : think about it and be 
quick '." 

The villa was quickly begun, soon finished, and 
called Ferdinanda after its creator. It is indeed a 
huge palace in the midst of the woods on the summit 
of a hill. 

"The Villa Ferdinanda," says Riccardi,^ "is com- 
posed of fifty-six rooms : fifteen of which are a terreno, 
fifteen on the first floor, twenty-one on the second and 
five underground. There is, too, in the centre of the 
villa towards the south an ample subterranean corridor 
cut in the living rock, as high as a man, that comes to 
an end far from the palace, a hundred metres, indeed, 
on the slope of the hill. Constructed perhaps for a 
drain this gulley would serve very well in case of need 
as a secret exit for flight." 

The Grand Duke filled the place with beautiful 
things; one reads of a Titian, a Raphael and a Bronzino 

^ Baldinucci, Notizie de^ Professori del Disegno, etc. (Firenze, 
1848), torn, ii., pp. 505-6. 

^ Riccardi, Ristretto delle cose piu notabile delta citta di 
Firenze (Firenze, 1767), p. 169. 



ARTIMINO 213 

hanging there. In 1782, however, Pietro Leopoldo I. 
sold Artimino to the Marchese di Montegiove, from 
whom it passed to the Conti Passerini of Cortona, who 
hold it to-day. 

Little as these beautiful hills are visited now, though 
they are as well worth seeing as any part of Tuscany, it 
was not always so. They were of old celebrated for 
their wine, so much so, that Redi, the court physician 
to Grand Duke Cosimo III., sang its praises in lyric 
verse, for in those days even a doctor might be a 
poet. 

His joyous, almost boyish, verses have been ex- 
cellently put into English by Leigh Hunt ; — ^ 

God's my life, what glorious claret ! 

Blessed be the ground that bear it ! 

'Tis Avignon. Don't say " a flask of it " ; 

Into my soul I pour a cask of it ; 

Artimino's finer still, 

Under a tun there's no having one's fill. 

There are two ways of returning to Florence from 
Artimino. One passes down through the vineyards 
behind the villa, and as long as you keep ever to the 
left on your way into the valley you cannot go wrong. 
By this way you will come in some three-quarters of 
an hour to the little town of Poggio alia Malva, and so 
to the new station of Carmignano. 

The other road is better and easier to find. Just 
before coming to the villa you follow the road to the 
left, and winding downwards into the valley cross the 
road there and climb the opposite hill into Comeana. 
It is a walk of half an hour. The road is beautiful 
and the view over the laughing hills and valleys sur- 
passingly lovely. From Comeana to Signa is some 

^ Leigh Hunt, Bacchus in Tuscany. A dithyrambic poem 
from the Italian of Francescof Redi (London, 1828). 



214 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

three miles by a good road, that, after passing Pescaiola 
above the Ombrone, crosses the river at Podere For- 
naci, where you turn sharply to the right, climbing 
through Pergolino and S. Miniato to the Castello of 
Signa, and so down to the station. 



XIII 

RIFREDI, QUARTO, CAREGGI, CONVENTO 
BELLA CONCEZIONE, VIA BOLOGNESE, 
IL PINO, VILLA SALVIATI, S. MARTA 

THERE are many ways that lead from the city to 
Careggi, that great villa of the Medici where 
both Cosimo Pater Patriae and Lorenzo il Magnifico 
lived and died, and the road thence on to the Montughi 
hills is one of the quietest and loveliest of all the ways 
about Florence. And then there is so much to see 
by the wayside. 

That is a good way that takes you from Piazza del 
Duomo ^ by tram to Rifredi in twenty minutes, so that 
your walk begins from the old bridge there over the 
Terzolle. Rifredi itself is to-day little more than a 
suburb of Florence, one of those busy borgos that are 
bound to spring up around any city quite shut in as 
Florence is by the iron walls of the dazio. Its name, 
Repetti thinks, may well be derived from the stream 
on whose banks the little town stands — Rio Freddo ; 
for though the torrent is to-day called Terzolle it was 
not always so. No doubt in the great wars of the 
fourteenth century, Rifredi suffered much from Cas- 
truccio, from the soldiery of Visconti, from Sir John 
Hawkwood when he avenged the Pisani. Nor did it 

^ Not by Giotto's tower, but at the corner of Via Arcive- 
scovado behind the baptistery. 

215 



2i6 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

escape in the great siege of 1529. Its chief interest for 
us to-day, however, lies in its church, S. Stefanoin Pane. 

After crossing the bridge at Rifredi, you take the 
first road to the right, and in two hundred yards you 
find yourself before the Pieve of S. Stefano, with its 
charming portico and ancient tower. Though the 
most ancient part about it cannot, I think, be older 
than the twelfth century, it was founded long before 
then, there being a record of it in the year 915. The 
Stefmna in the terra-cotta of the della Robbia over the 
door belongs to the Tornabuoni, and dates from the 
end of the fifteenth or the early sixteenth century, at 
which time too the portico was built. 

Within, the church is divided into three naves, with 
three apses and three doors corresponding to them. 
Over the great door is a fifteenth century fresco, a 
Pieta, repeated over the door at the end of the north 
aisle. The large altar-piece there is a work of Giovanni 
della Robbia. It enshrines a fine Giottesque picture 
of Madonna with our Lord in her arms. On either 
side this shrine stand two figures of prophets, and, 
though the colouring is a little unfortunate perhaps, 
the statues are worthy of Giovanni. As much cannot 
be said for the composition as a whole. Poor in de- 
sign, you see above two flying angels with a crown in 
their hands, and below, in the gradino, other angels 
bearing the plaque on which is carved the cypher of 
our Lord. Under is the following inscription : Questa 
Vergine Maria e dal popolo della Pieve di S. Stefano in 
Pane la quale fu restaurata sino I' anno mdxxx di 
settembre al tempo di Stefano Maccetti e Giovanni Socci 
operai. — Dipoi fu di novo restaurata pure di settembre 
Panno Santo dell' mdcxxv al tempo del Rev. Mon- 
signore Luca Mini protofiotario Apostolico e pievano 
di d. pieve. 

We come upon Giovanni's work again in the chapel 



LA QUIETE 217 

at the end of this aisle. For there, hanging on the left 
wall, is a relief from his hand of the Marriage of the 
Blessed Virgin. On the north side of the church, 
and to be entered from it, is the Chapel of the Com- 
pagnia di S. Maria del Desio, built in the thirteenth 
century, and restored and decorated in the seventeenth 
with fresco of the life of S. Stephen. 

Leaving S. Stefano, we follow the road past the first 
fork, till at the second we take the road to the right, 
Via del Quarto. Following it for a quarter of a mile 
till it divides, we then turn to the left into Via della 
Quiete, and a little later to the right, coming at last to 
the great gates of the R. Conservatorio delle Mon- 
talve, lately il Palagio di Quarto, commonly called La 
Quiete. 

Knocking there for admittance, you are presently 
led by one of the sisters (for the place is now become 
a girls' school) into the palace itself, and at last you 
find yourself in a fine gallery of pictures, a collection 
of really fine work of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries. 

Repetti tells us ^ that this royal villa was founded 
in the beginning of the seventeenth century by the 
Grand Duchess Cristina, and adorned with pictures by 
Grand Duke Cosimo IL Carocci, however, will not 
have it so. He says that the foundation of the villa 
is very ancient, that already in the fourteenth century 
it belonged to the Orlandini del Gonfalone Drago S. 
Giovanni. A little later, he says, in 1438, it came into 
the hands of the famous Condottiero, Niccolo da 
Tolentino, who probably received it as a gift from the 
Republic. They owed him some such thanks cer- 
tainly. In 1434 he led the Florentine troops against 
that redoubtable Captain Niccolo Piccinino, who was 

^ Repetti, op. cit., vol. iv., p. 690. 



2i8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

fighting for Visconti of Milan in the endless, useless 
wars of the fifteenth century. He was beaten and 
made prisoner, and, as some say, poisoned. The 
Florentines for once seem really to have loved their 
defender, for they buried him in the Duomo not far 
from Sir John Hawkwood, and there Andrea del Cas- 
tagno painted him on horseback. Then Carocci tells 
us^ Pico Francesco de' Medici bought the villa from 
Tolentino's sons, but sold it to one of the Taddei in 
1495. When the Republic fell, the Taddei, however, 
had to flee for their lives, for they were no friends of 
the Medici, and so the place came into the hands of 
Cosimo I., who had just founded his military Order of 
the Knights S. Stephen. They seem to have held the 
place for a time, and we find it in the hands of their 
Commendatori, among them Mario Sforza and Cardinal 
Giovanni Carlo de* Medici. It was from that Order 
that, according to Carocci, the Grand Duchess Cristina 
of Lorraine bought the place, and then, in 1650, it 
passed to the Trinitarians, who, if the Knights of S. 
Stephen were established to clear the seas of pirates, 
had long and long ago undertaken the redemption of 
captives, some 900,000 passing thus through their 
hands. La Quiete, however, became one of their con- 
vents for the reception and education of girls of noble 
family. 

Their gallery of pictures bears witness to their splen- 
dour and wealth, and then there are three works here 
of the school of the della Robbia. The two large 
lunettes represent the Incredulity of S. Thomas and 
Christ appearing to S. Mary Magdalen in the garden. 
They were once in the church of the convent and were 
probably carved in the early years of the sixteenth cen- 
tury.2 In the former, you have practically Verrocchio's 

1 Carocci, op. cit., vol. i., p. 270. 

2 See Maud Cruttwell, op. cit., p. 235. 



LA QUIETE 219 

group in the great niche of San Michele, set in a land- 
scape for background. The Noli Me Tangere is 
obviously a work by the same hand. Was it Giovanni 
della Robbia who made these beautiful, strange things ? 
The Noli Me Tangere, says Miss Cruttwell, "has 
been attributed to Francesco Rustici, the imitator of 
Leonardo da Vinci, on the basis of the following state- 
ment of Vasari in his Life of Giovanni Francesco 
Rustici : * He executed in half-relief in clay for the 
nuns of S. Lucia in Via San Gallo, a Christ in the 
Garden who appears to Mary Magdalen ; the which 
was afterwards glazed by Giovanni della Robbia and 
placed over an altar in the church of the said sisters 
between a decoration of Macigno'} The statement 
is of interest, and worthy of consideration, for neither 
of these reliefs have quite the character of Giovanni's 
work, nor of any of the school. They approach most 
nearly ... to the manner of Benedetto Buglioni. 
Judging by the one work we possess of Rustici — 
the Preaching of S. John to the Pharisee — over the 
north gate of the baptistery, there is little ground for 
attributing them to him. The work of the bronze 
statues is of a different quality, freer and nobler." 
There are three other works here of the della Robbia 
school; and a Magdalen in the Garden in the en- 
trance hall, a poorer worker than either of the above, 
and two predellas of angels' heads, that possibly be- 
longed to the two lunettes. 

The pictures are many of them very lovely. To the 
left of the entrance is a big altar-piece, a Marriage of 
S. Catherine, perhaps by a late Umbrian master. And 
then, on the left wall, there is an exquisite Giottesque 
Madonna and Child painted in gold, where our Lord 
wears a charm round His neck, and in His hand is a 

1 Vasari, Vite (Milanesi), vi., 606. 



2 20 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

little struggling bird, while under is written regina 
CELL On the wall at the end of the room to the 
left is another late painting, again a Marriage of S. 
Catherine, and to the right four saints and a fifteenth 
century Florentine picture^ of the Adoration of the 
Kings, whilst above, Christ hangs on the Cross in a man- 
dorla of angels, and on one side are two saints and on 
the other Tobias and the angel. Beside these hangs a 
beautiful Giottesque Crucifixion painted on gold, with 
S. John and S. Mary Magdalen at the foot of the Cross, 
and a picture by some early fifteenth century master of 
the Ascension. 

The most beautiful picture in the room, however, 
hangs to the right of the entrance. It is a Coronation 
of the Virgin by some pupil of Amico di Sandro.^ 
Above in the heavens, amid a company of virgins, some 
blowing sweetly on the silver trumpets as at the Eleva- 
tion itself, amid the sound of lyres and flutes the Turris 
Eburnea bends before God who crowned Himself with 
the three crowns of His mysterious majesty, crowns 
her too Regina Coeli. 

Below in our world, what is this company of saints 
and queens and virgins, that looks — how longingly — 
into the heavens where she is ? Are they not all those 
who have loved her in the long days of their pilgrimage ? 
There are S. Peter and S. Paul, S. John Baptist and 
S. Louis of Toulouse, S. Francis of Assisi and S. Ber- 
nardino of Siena among the rest, but who is she, that 
lily, all of rose and white and gold, who, lightly 
crowned, looks up so sweetly, her robe caught in her 
hands ? Perhaps it is S. Elizabeth of Hungary, and 
yet I know not. She might indeed be that Aphrodite 

1 Mr. Berenson tells me this is perhaps an early work of 
Raffaele Botticini. 

2 Again I am indebted to Mr. Berenson for this attribution. 
Scuola di Amico di Sandro is his verdict. 




THE CORONATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN 

Fro7n the picture by a pupil of A luico di Saiidro in the Conservatorio della Quiete 

near Rifredi 



CAREGGI 221 

whose kingdom had fallen before the Maiden of 
Bethlehem. 

Not far from La Quiete, if you follow the road by 
which you came quite into Quarto, there is a tabernacle 
at the corner of Via S. Maria, which keeps a fresco by 
Pontormo ; it is a little difficult to see, but worth all 
the trouble you may give to see it. When returning 
on the way past the convent, even so far as the place 
where you first turned into Via della Quiete, you 
follow this road of Quietness, and where it forks, keep 
to the right, till you come again to the Terzolle, and 
there in front of you, across the stream, a little to the 
right, is the Villa Medici at Careggi — all you are likely 
to see of it — for one may not enter without a permit, 
and that is difficult to get.^ To the left stands Torre 
di Careggi, where the illustrious friends of the Medici 
House were often given hospitality. You may walk 
quite round the gardens of Villa Medici, without see- 
ing more of it however than you can from here. If 
you turn upstream to the left and crossing the bridge 
follow the road uphill and then down to the right so 
far as the great entrance, that indeed is our way, but 
before following it, let us recall what we can of the 
most famous villa of the Florentine country. 

The four great villas of the Medici were those of 
Fiesole, Careggi, Poggio a Cajano and Cafaggiuolo. 
Of these, the villas at Fiesole and Careggi were the 
nearer to Florence. Careggi, indeed, lies but two 
miles to the north-west of the city on the hill of 
Montughi, that hill which Varchi praises so much, 
calling it the most delightful of all those round about 
the city, and named, as he says, " after the ancient and 
noble family of the Ughi," but as we may prefer to 

^ Those who wish to see the villa must write for permission 
to Signer Segre, i6 Via Magenta, Rome. 



2 22 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

think after the Marchese Ugo, who, according to Vil- 
lani, founded so many monasteries. 

It was in the summer of 141 7 that Cosimo de' Medici 
bought a country-house at Careggi for 800 florins. It 
was d^palagio with a courtyard or well, a loggia, arches, 
dove-cotes, a tower, a walled garden for kitchen stuff, 
two houses for contadini, vineyards, olive gardens and 
spinnies, all in the parish of S. Piero at Careggi as the 
contract tells us.^ And just as when Cosimo wished 
to build that palace in Via Larga, so now when he was 
about to rebuild this great country villa, he gave the 
work to the architect he seems always to have preferred 
before all the rest, Michelozzo Michelozzi. Here in the 
villa Michelozzo built, Cosimo gathered his friends 
about him, filling the great rooms with the work of Fra 
Filippo Lippi, of Donatello, and the rest ; here Marsilio 
Ficino read Plato to him, Leon Alberti spoke to him of 
beauty, and here at last he died. It was at Careggi, 
too, that his son Piero spent most of his time, and 
there the young Lorenzo listened to the words, and 
beautiful they must have been, of Lucrezia Tornabuoni 
his mother, and wandered in the gardens with that 
strange Greek Argyropolus and read Plato and Aris- 
totle with Ficino and Landino, and heard those country 
songs that he kept so long in his heart, till he too came 
to die in this place also, turning his face to the wall 
when Savanarola spoke of impossible things. The 
room on the first floor on the south side of the villa 
is supposed to be that in which Savanarola left him for 
the last time. 

The villa, however, in the first place, was Cosimo's, 

1 Let me once again refer the reader to Mrs. Ross's book on 
the Florentine Villas. It is full of every sort of information 
and deals with all the greater villas round Florence. The 
chapter on Careggi will be found at pages 26-36. My debt to 
the book, both here and in dealing with other villas, is great. 



CAREGGI 223 

and here he spent all the time he could spare from the 
affairs of Florence in the company of poets, and artists, 
and philosophers and the beautiful ladies of his court, 
of what was a court in all but name. Consider then 
who they were who have passed perhaps under these 
very trees. Michelozzo certainly, Donatello too, and 
his friend Brunellesco and their rival Ghiberti. Was 
it here Verrocchio first saw Vanna Tornabuoni ? Was 
it among these trees those three ladies danced on 
a summer afternoon while Botticelli hid in the under- 
growth, and Simonetta, searching for the young 
Giuliano, came through the olives scattering flowers? 
Perhaps Poliziano, that learned man, here first caught 
sight of that life which he permitted to pass him by — 
ah, so reluctantly ; perhaps it was here he composed 
La Brunettina Mia, while Sacchetti, laughing at his 
eagerness, on a wet afternoon, wrote the unforgettable 
verses we know so well, and Lorenzo himself, the 
greatest poet of them all, composed the finest poem 
of his age. 

Quant'e bella giovinezza 
Che si fuge tuttavia. 

But Cosimo, who held Florence in the palm of his 
hand, bade Marsilio turn the page of his Plato. " Come 
to us, Marsilio," he writes, '' come to us as soon as 
you are able." Was he not dying? " Bring with you 
your translation of Plato, De Summo Bono, for I desire 
nothing so much as to learn the road to the greatest 
happiness." 

"The other day," writes Piero to his sons Lorenzo 
and Giuliano in the last days of their grandfather's 
life, ** I wrote you how much worse Cosimo was ; 
it seems to me that he is gradually sinking, and he 
thinks the same himself. On Tuesday evening he 
would have no one in his room save only Mona Con- 



2 24 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

tessina and myself. He began by recounting all 
his past life, then he touched upon the government of 
the city, and then on its commerce, and last he spoke 
of the management of the private possessions of our 
family and of what concerns you two ; taking comfort 
that you had good wits and bidding me educate you 
well so that you might be able to help me. Two 
things he deplored. First, that he had not done as 
much as he wished or could have done ; second, that 
he left me in such poor health and with much irksome 
business. Then he said he would make no will, not 
having made one whilst Giovanni was alive, seeing us 
always united in true love, amity and esteem ; and 
that when it pleased God so to order it, he desired 
to be buried without pomp or show, and he reminded 
me of his often expressed wish to be buried in San 
Lorenzo. All this he said with much method and 
prudence and with a courage that was marvellous to 
see ; adding, that his life had been a long one and that 
he was ready and content to depart whenever it pleased 
God. Yesterday he left his bed and caused himself to 
be carefully dressed. The Priori of San Marco, of 
San Lorenzo and of the Badia were present, and he 
spoke the responses as though in perfect health. 
Then being asked the Articles of Faith, he repeated 
them word by word, made his confession, and took the 
Holy Sacrament with more devotion than can be 
described, having first asked pardon of all present. 
These things have raised my courage and my hope in 
God Almighty, and although according to the flesh I 
am sorrowful, yet, seeing the greatness of his soul, and 
how well disposed, I am in part content that his end 
should be thus. Yesterday he was pretty well and also 
during the night, but on account of his great age, I 
have small hope of his recovery. Cause prayers to be 
said for him by the Monks of the Wood and bestow 



CAREGGI 225 

alms as seems good to you, praying God to leave him 
to us for a while if such be for the best. And you, 
who are young, take example and your share of care 
and trouble as God has ordained, and make up your 
minds to be men, your condition and the present care 
demanding that of you lads. And above all take heed 
to everything that can add to your honour and be of 
use to you, because the time has come when it is 
necessary that you should rely on yourselves and live 
in the fear of God and hope all will go well. Of what 
happens to Cosimo I will advise you. We are 
expecting a doctor from Milan, but I have more hope 
in Almighty God than in aught else. No more at 
present. Careggi, the 26th July, 1464."^ 

Poor Mona Contessina, watching her husband die 
and wondering why he lay with closed eyes though he 
was not sleeping, asked him, and he answered, ''To 
use them to it ". Five days after that letter of Piero's, 
on the I St August, 1464, he died, and they buried him 
as he wished, not without honours, in San Lorenzo. 
Piero, his son, gouty, and altogether without energy, was 
content to confirm his political position, and to over- 
whelm the Pitti conspiracy. It is in Lorenzo, born in 
1448, that the Medici family produced its " genius" and 
Florence one of the greatest of her sons. In his day 
Careggi must have been even more brilliant and much 
gayer than in Cosimo's time. He died there. And 
though his life was certainly not so simple or so honest 
as his grandfather's had been, he met his death in the 
most trying and difficult circumstances, certainly not 
with less dignity and courage. Poliziano, the faithful 
friend, who perhaps loved him better than any one else, 
has left us this account of his end. 

" The day before his death," writes the poet, " being 

iC/. Roscoe, Lorenzo de' Medici (Bell, 1881), App, iv., p. 
(^J5, and Ross, Florentine Villas, p. 29. 

15 



226 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

at his Villa of Careggi. he grew so weak that all hope 
of saving him vanished away. Understanding this, 
like the wise man he was, he called before all else for 
the confessor to purge him of his sins. This confessor 
told us later that he marvelled to see with what courage 
and constancy Lorenzo prepared himself for death ; 
how well he ordered all things pertaining thereunto, 
and with what prudence and religious feeling he 
thought on the life to come. Towards midnight, while 
he was meditating quietly, he was informed that the 
priest, bearing the Blessed Sacrament, was come. 
Rousing himself he exclaimed : * It shall never be 
said that My Lord, who created and saved me, shall 
come to me — in my room ; — raise me, I beg of you, 
raise me quickly so that I may go to meet Him '. Say- 
ing this he raised himself as well as he could, and sup- 
ported by his servants advanced to meet the priest in 
the outer room. Then crying he knelt down. ... At 
length the priest advised that he should be raised from 
the ground and carried to bed so as to receive the 
Viaticum in greater comfort. For sometime he resisted, 
but at last, out of respect to the priest, he obeyed. In 
bed, repeating almost the same prayer and with much 
gravity and devotion, he received the Body and Blood 
of Christ. Then he devoted himself to consoling his 
son Pietro, for the others were away, and exhorted him 
to bear this law of necessity with constancy ; feeling 
sure the aid of Heaven would be vouchsafed to him, 
as it had been to himself in many and divers occasions, 
if only he acted wisely. Meanwhile your Lorenzo, the 
doctor from Pa via came ; most learned as it seemed 
to me, but summoned too late to be of any use ; yet 
to do something he ordered various precious stones to 
be pounded together in a mortar for I know not what 
kind of medicine. Lorenzo thereupon asked the ser- 
vants what the doctor was doing in his room and what 



CAREGGI 227 

he was preparing ; and when I answered that he was 
composing a remedy to comfort his intestines he re- 
cognised my voice, looking kindly, as was his wont. 

* Oh, Angiolo,' he said, * art thou here ? ' and raising 
his languid arms took both my hands and pressed them 
tightly. I could not stifle my sobs or stay my tears, 
though I tried hard to hide them by turning my face 
away. But he showed no emotion and continued to 
press my hands between his. When he saw that I 
could not speak for crying, quite naturally he loosed 
my hands and I ran into the adjoining room, where I 
could give free vent to my grief and to my tears. Then 
drying my eyes I returned, and as soon as he saw me 
he called me to him and asked what Pico della Mir- 
andola was doing. I replied that Pico had remained 
in the city, fearing to molest him with his presence. 

* And I,' said Lorenzo, ' but for fear that the journey 
hither might be irksome to him, would be most glad 
to see him and to speak to him for the last time before 
I leave you all.' I asked if I should send for him. 
' Certainly, and with all speed,' he answered. This I 
did and Pico came and sat near the bed, while I leaned 
against it by his knees in order to hear the languid 
voice of my lord for the last time. With what good- 
ness, with what courtesy, I may say with what caresses, 
Lorenzo received him. First he asked his pardon for 
thus disturbing him, begging him to look upon it as 
the sign of the friendship — the love — he bore him ; 
assuring him that he died more willingly after seeing 
so dear a friend. Then introducing, as was his wont, 
pleasant and familiar sayings, he joked also with me. 
' I wish,' he said to Pico, 'that death had spared me 
until your library had been complete.' Pico had 
hardly left the room when Fra Girolamo of Ferrara, a 
man celebrated for his doctrine and his sanctity, and 
an excellent preacher, came in. To his exhortations 



228 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

to remain firm in his faith, and to live in future, if 
Heaven should grant him life, free from crime ; or, if 
God so willed it, to receive death willingly ; Lorenzo 
replied that he was firm in his religion, that his life 
would always be guided by it, and that nothing could 
be sweeter to him than death if such were the Divine 
will. Era Girolamo then turned to go, when Lorenzo 
said, ' Oh, Father, before going, deign to give me thy 
benediction '. Then having his head uncovered in 
piety and religion, he repeated the words and prayers 
of the friar without attending to the grief more openly 
shown of his familiars.^ It seemed as though all save 
Lorenzo were going to die, so calm was he. He gave 
no signs of anxiety or of sorrow, even in that extreme 
moment he showed his usual strength and fortitude. 
The doctors who stood round him, not to seem idle, 
worried him with their remedies and assistance : he 
accepted and submitted to everything they suggested, 
not because he thought it would save him, but in order 
not to offend any one even in death. To the last he 
had such mastery over himself that he joked about his 
own death. Then when given something to eat, asked 
how he liked it, he answered, ' As well as a dying man 
can like anything '. He embraced us all tenderly, and 
humbly asked pardon if, during his illness, he had 
caused annoyance to any one. Then disposing himself 
to receive Extreme Unction he commended his soul to 

1 Whether Poliziano has spoken all the truth or has discreetly 
drawn a veil over the vulgar brutality of Savanarola, I know 
not. Pico della Mirandola and half a dozen other eye-witnesses 
say that when Lorenzo asked for Savanarola's benediction he 
answered, " Three things are necessary : First, a lively faith in 
the mercy of God ". " I have that," said Lorenzo. "Second," 
said the friar, " to restore what you have unjustly taken." This 
Lorenzo agreed to do. " Third," said Savanarola, " to restore 
Liberty to Florence." And Lorenzo turned his face to the 
wall, and Savanarola departed withgut blessing him. 



CAREGGI 229 

God. The Gospel of the Passion of Christ was then 
read, and he showed that he understood by moving his 
lips, or raising his languid eyes, or sometimes moving 
his fingers. Gazing upon a silver crucifix inlaid with 
precious stones and kissing it from time to time, he 
departed." 

Thus died one of the greatest of the Florentines ; so 
beloved, that for love of him Poliziano is said to have 
died of grief, Pico della Mirandola to have entered a 
convent, whilst his doctor Piero Leoni " killed himself 
in despair at not being able to save him ". And, in- 
deed, after him the deluge. Twice were the Medici 
expelled from Florence after his death, once in 1494 
and again in 1527. 

In 1529 "Dante and Lorenzo di Castiglione and 
a number of young men went in haste and set fire 
to the villas of Careggi and Castello. ..." Well, 
they succeeded only in part. Alessandro de' Medici 
restored Careggi before he was murdered by his 
cousin Lorenzino, but though Grand Duke Ferdinando 
liked the place well and tried to revive Lorenzo's 
Platonic Academy, with Lorenzo's death Careggi leaves 
the page of history and even drops out of the memoirs. 
In 1779 the Grand Duke sold it, since when it has 
been in foreign hands. 

From before the great entrance of Villa Medici a 
road Via della Chiesa winds uphill towards the church 
of S. Pietro. It is a beautiful way between the gardens, 
while before you on the hills are the fine and lovely 
villas of which old Varchi speaks, so that all the world 
here is a garden. 

S. Pietro with its pretty country portico had the 
Medici for patrons, but little remains to it from their 
time. Only indeed a charming little picture where 
Madonna sits with our Lord in her lap among angels 



230 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

and cherubs by Benozzo Gozzoli, and that is only come 
to the church in our time. 

Leaving S. Pietro, when the road divides we turn to 
the right, and presently before an old villa on the right to 
the left uphill, winning soon a fine view over Val d'Arno, 
with the great hills of Montorsoli and S. Donato in 
Colle far away to the south and east, and all the plea- 
sant land of Tuscany, Val di Greve, Val di Pesa, before 
us. Then as we get higher, while that fair far-away 
world is hidden from us, the hills open to the north 
and we look over the bare valley of the Terzollina to 
Monte Morello, that extinct volcano under whose 
shadow Florence lies, so peaceful now. Passing the little 
convent of the Concezione, built by the Cappuccini, we 
follow the road to the right from Villa Terra Rossa, 
coming in a hundred yards or so into Via Bolognese. 
Turning there to the right and following the highway 
towards Florence, in a mile you find yourself at II 
Pino, that little church at the top of a great flight of 
steps with its charming portico, beside which, as it 
seems, a pine tree has always grown. A hundred yards 
below the church a way turns to the left out of Via 
Bolognese, and by that way you pass the Villa Salviati 
which, built possibly by Michelozzo, was at the height 
of its glory in the seventeenth century.^ 

By this way you come in twenty minutes to the 
Ponte della Badia where Stilicho defeated Radagaisus, 
and so to San Domenico under Fiesole, where you find 
the tram for Florence. But if, instead of leaving Via 
Bolognese, you follow it to La Loggia, though the way 
is not so fine, you may then pass the old convent of 
Santa Marta once so rich in pictures. 

After passing La Loggia you take the first way to 

1 Mrs. Ross in her Florentine Villas has a long account of 
the glories of the villa in the days of Cosimo I. 



i^'I'^f/ 






\ ' 'i' 'i^M S ':'J: y .-■'^ 

\6 



^ '*''■#' 







1 \):aM'ti"^ 









\ -.t^^lJ^ 



S. MARTA 231 

the right, and in something less than a mile, after pass- 
ing a fine dim shrine, you come to the old convent, 
very grand still though ruined. 

Deo et D. Marth^e. 

You read over the portal : — 

lottierius. davanzatius. erexit. testamento. 
mcccxxxvi. lotta. acciaiolia. cum. xi. nobilib. 
ingressa. est. mcccxliii. lohannes. bartholom. f. 

DAVANZATIUS AUXIT MDIC. 

It tells the whole story. 

Lottieri di Davanzanti by his will of 1336 built the 
convent on this hill of Montughi, and gave it to the 
humiliati. In 1343 the place became a nunnery, and 
the first nun was Lotta Acciajuoli, widow of one of the 
Cornacchini who entered into the convent with eleven 
noble companions. In 1579 a thunderbolt struck the 
convent and killed two nuns and a little girl. Then in 
1599, at the cost of Giovanni di Bartolommeo Da- 
vanzati, it was rebuilt. All sorts of precious and 
wonderful things once were gathered in the church 
here. Carocci speaks of an Agnolo Gaddi, a Filippo 
Lippi, a Giovanni della Robbia, but to-day they have 
all been imprisoned in the galleries. The old convent 
is quite bare, only, even yet the little nuns linger there 
whispering, whispering behind the gratings, the Rosary 
of Madonna. 

It is a straight road from S. Marta to the highway, 
and thence we turn to the right into the city by Porta 
S, Gallo. 



XIV 

THE WAY OF CATILINE, QUINTO, SESTO, 
SETTIMELLO, AND CALENZANO 

'T^HE Strada di Prato, leaving Florence by the Porta 
-■- al Prato, and turning immediately northward, 
crosses the Mugnone by Ponte alle Asse, passing 
through Rifredi, and under Quarto and Quinto, mile- 
stones, as their names suggest, on the old Roman Way, 
which at Sesto enters the first considerable little town, 
just six miles from the city. It is the way for the most 
part that the railway travels on its road to Prato, 
Pistoja, and the north. And for the most part too the 
tram is content to use it, old as it is, renamed now Via 
Vittorio Emanuele, as though King Victor Emmanuel 
had had something to do with it. But in truth this 
way, beside whose milestones even to Settimello the 
people gathered themselves into villages, is older than 
Modern Italy, older than the Renaissance even, or the 
Latin Republics of the Middle Ages ; it is the Roman 
road to Prato, and by that way Catiline went.^ 

" Now Catiline," says Villani, in his true story-telling 
vein, " now Catiline, having departed from Rome with 

^ This route may be as easily driven as walked. In the 
latter case, take the tram from Piazza del Duomo (corner Via 
Arcevescovado) to Sesto. For the return a train should be 
taken from Calenzano. See time-table. 

232 



THE WAY OF CATILINE 233 

part of his followers, came into Tuscany, where Man- 
lius, one of his principal fellow-conspirators, who was 
captain, had gathered his people in the ancient city of 
Fiesole, and Catiline being come thither, he caused the 
said city to rebel against the lordship of the Romans, 
assembling all the rebels and exiles from Rome and 
from many other provinces, with lewd folk disposed 
for war and for ill-doing, and he began fierce war with 
the Romans. The Romans hearing this, decreed that 
Caius Antonius, the consul, and Publius Petreius, with 
an army of horse and many foot, should march into 
Tuscany against the city of Fiesole and against Catiline, 
and they sent by them letters and messengers to 
Quintus Metellus, who was returning from France 
with a great host of the Romans, that he should also 
come with his force from the other side to the siege of 
Fiesole, and pursue Catiline and his followers. 

" Now when Catiline heard that the Romans were 
coming to besiege him in the city of Fiesole, and that 
Antonius and Petreius were already with their host in 
the plain of Fiesole, upon the bank of the river Arno, 
and how that Metellus was already in Lombardy with 
his host of three legions which were coming from 
France, and the succour which he was expecting from 
his allies which had remained in Rome had failed him, 
he took counsel not to shut himself up in the city of 
Fiesole, but to go into France ; and therefore he de- 
parted from that city with his people and with a lord 
of Fiesole who was called Fiesolanus, and he had his 
horses' shoes reversed to the end that when they de- 
parted the hoof-prints of the horses might show as 
though folk had entered into Fiesole, and not sallied 
forth thence, to cause the Romans to tarry near the 
city, that he might depart thence the more safely. And 
having departed by night to avoid Metellus, he did not 
hold the direct road through the mountains which we 



2 34 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

call the Alps of Bologna,^ but took the plain by the 
side of the mountains and came where to-day is the 
city of Pistoja ^ in the place called Campo Piceno, that 
was below where to-day is the fortress of Piteccio, pur- 
posing to cross the Apennines by that way, and descend 
thence into Lombardy, but Antonius and Petreius, 
hearing of his departure, straightway followed after him 
with their host along the plain, so that they overtook 
him in the said place, and Metellus, on the other hand, 
set guards at the passes of the mountains, to the end 
he might not pass thereby. Catiline, seeing himself to 
be thus straitened, so that he could not avoid battle, 
gave himself and his followers to the chances of combat 
with great courage and boldness, in the which battle 
there was great slaughter of Romans from the city and 
of rebel Romans and of Fiesolani, at the end of which 
fierce battle Catiline was defeated and slain in that 
place of Piceno with all his followers ; and the field re- 
mained to the Romans, but with such dolorous victory 
that the said two consuls with twenty horse, who alone 
escaped, did not care to return to Rome. The which 
thing could not gain credence with the Romans till 
the senators sent thither to learn the truth ; and, this 
known, there was the greatest sorrow thereat in Rome. 
And he who desires to seh this history more fully, let 
him read the book of Sallustio called Catalinario. 
The injured and wounded of Catiline's people who had 
escaped death in the battle, albeit they were but few, 
withdrew where is to-day the city of Pistoja, and there 
in vile habitations became the first inhabitants thereof, 
whilst their wounds were healing. And after, by reason 
of the good situation and fruitful soil, the inhabitants 
thereof increased, which afterwards built the city of 
Pistoja, and by reason of the great mortality and pesti- 

1 In other words, he did not go by Via Bolognese. 

2 That is to say, he went by Strada di Prato. 



THE WAY OF CATILINE 235 

lence which was near that place, both of their people 
and of the Romans, they gave it the name of Pistoja ; 
and therefore it is not to be marvelled at if the Pistojans 
have been and are a fierce and cruel people in war 
among themselves and against others, being descended 
from the race of Catiline and from the remnants of 
such people as his, discomfited and wounded in battle." 

Just there speaks the Florentine ready to twist even 
the derivation of a word against those he hates. Pis- 
toja, however, can very well look after herself, and indeed 
it is not of her but of Catiline and his army hastening 
along this very road towards disaster that we think as 
we pass through Rifredi, that noisy village now little 
more than a suburb of the city, and following in his 
wake come to Castello and its Grand Ducal villas, and 
hastening on, under Quinto, reach Sesto at last, where 
the tramway comes to an end. 

Just a mile before you come to Sesto, however, 
Quinto lies on the lower hills. You reach it by leav- 
ing the tram at the Case delle Monache, and taking 
the road there on the right, follow it uphill for three 
hundred yards till it bears suddenly to the right. 
Then when it meets a highway, you turn sharply to the 
left, and following this new way, to the right when it 
forks, in a few minutes you find yourself standing be- 
fore the Church of S. Maria al Quinto. 

Quinto itself, as its name implies, was a little village 
that gathered itself about the fifth milestone on the 
Prato road. Rebuilt and wholly restored in 1770, the 
Church of S. Maria keeps still that picture which as its 
inscription tells us Maria Giovanna di Dino de' Grilli 
caused to be set there. It is a panel of the Annuncia- 
tion by some follower of Giotto, one of the loveliest 
things certainly in a country full of such surprises. 
Beside it is a fifteenth century tabernacle, bearing the 
arms of the Aldobrandini, that powerful family which 



236 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

long and long ago had all this country in fee from the 
Bishop of Florence. 

Leaving Quinto and continuing on our way past the 
church, turning neither to right nor left, in half a mile 
we come to Colonnata di Sesto in the hills where of old 
the Aldobrandini ruled. For long enough now, how- 
ever, it is the Conti Ginori who have been famous there. 

All the world knows those porcelains, which good, 
bad and indifferent, as the taste of the years has decreed, 
but as it might seem always as good as the time allowed, 
have been made at Doccia by the Ginori workmen, and 
strangely enough have been used to decorate, a little 
too lavishly one may think, the Villa Ginori itself. 
The place is well worth a visit. First founded in Europe 
at Meissen in 17 10, then at Vienna, the manufacture 
of porcelain was begun in Tuscany by Conte Carlo 
Ginori in 1735, thus taking precedence, in date at any 
rate, of the French Fabrique of Sevres. The earlier 
pieces made here at Colonnata are, as might be sup- 
posed, of a great price, and have for the most part 
found their way into the cabinets of the collectors, the 
corridors of our museums. Carlo Ginori himself, to 
whom nature had given both energy and good taste, 
brought from Vienna, it is said, the artisans Carlo 
Wandelein and Alaric Prugger : in his employment too 
we find the sculptor Bruschi and the painter Aureiter. 
There was therefore very little distinctly Tuscan in the 
work he proposed to himself to achieve. Perhaps 
that is why in spite of its complete material success 
it remained without real distinction. The pottery of 
Urbino and Gubbio and Castel Durante, the work of 
Maestro Giorgio and his assistants, done certainly in 
a less precious material, remains how much more lovely 
than even the finest work of Doccia. Yet we. read 
that Ginori's success was complete and that the Govern- 
ment gave him the monopoly of such work here in 



THE WAY OF CATILINE 237 

Tuscany. In 1743 the Neapolitans at Capodimonte 
began to decorate their porcelains with little bas-reliefs ; 
but when \kidX fabricca came to an end in the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century, the Ginori appropriated 
the invention, and a little later began to imitate the 
work of the della Robbia, and, in 1847, that done in 
the sixteenth century at Urbino, Gubbio and Pesaro. 
To-day the factory employs some twelve hundred 
workmen who have their homes here in Colonnata. 

It is a straight road from Doccia back to the Strada 
di Prato, and then, turning to the left, a short quarter 
of a mile into the little Piazza of Sesto Fiorentino, 
where the tramway comes to an end. 

Sesto Fiorentino itself would have but little interest 
for us to-day, old as it is, for little of antiquity remains 
to it, if it were not for its Church of S. Martino, founded 
already in 868, and once under the patronage of the 
Aldobrandini, given them in fee with the neighbour- 
ing contrada of Colonnata by Rimbaldo, Bishop of 
Florence in the time of Otho I. 

To reach the church you leave the narrow Piazza in 
which the tram stops by a street on the left, now called 
Via Giuseppe Verdi, and presently between the houses 
you come into a great open space in which S. Martino 
stands, the only ancient thing there, behind a beautiful 
portico. Within, the church has suffered restoration, 
which, while doubtless it has robbed us of much that 
was lovely, seems yet to have brought to light all that 
was left of certain frescoes there of the early fourteenth 
century. The great treasure of the church, however, 
consists in two things : the magnificent Giottesque 
Crucifix over the eastern door, and the picture, all that 
is left of what was once a triptych, representing per- 
haps the Assumption. While in the oratory annexed 
to the church, the Oratorio di S. Giovanni Battista, 



238 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

there is a stucco carving of the Madonna which merits, 
certainly, even if it may not really claim, its attribution 
to Donatello himself. 

Leaving S. Martino, and returning to the Strada di 
Prato, you follow it quite through the town, till, in the 
country again, just after passing a little stream that 
runs under the road between the last houses, the 
way forks and you turn right, following still Via 
Vittoria Emanuele, as it is called, leaving here the 
ancient way to Prato. And in spite of its being all a 
highway, this road on the skirts of the hills, which passes 
through the vineyards and by the olive groves, some- 
times winding by a garden, sometimes stealing along in 
the shadow of the cypresses, has a charm wanting to 
many a by-way, possessing indeed many of the delights 
of a river winding at the foot of the hills, the surprising 
quiet, the unexciting surprises of a broad stream wander- 
ing out of the meadows into the villages, and out of 
the villages into the gardens, and out of the gardens 
round about the hills. 

For nearly a mile it wanders across the plains in the 
shadow of the mountains under S. Jacopo a Quercetto, 
that beautiful church the colour of a Gloire di Dijon 
rose, such a church as you seldom find nowadays in 
Tuscany, but that of old must often have cheered the 
traveller, weary on the way, with the sound of its bells 
at evening ringing the Angelus. 

It is another church, a church of the plain, that, if 
you are lucky, you may just descry across the vineyards, 
due south from Quercetto, S. Maria and S. Barto- 
lommeo a Padule they call it. You may find a fresco 
there of the fifteenth century, over the door. Madonna 
with our Lord in her arms between S. Bartolommeo 
and another, while beside it is another fresco, of the 
same period, but not from the same hand, in which 
you see again S. Bartolommeo with S. Giovanni Bat- 



THE WAY OF CATILINE 239 

tista and another. If you seek it out, take the first road 
to the left after leaving Strada di Prato, and following it 
across the railway turn right, and then take the second 
road to the left — but it is scarcely worth the time and 
trouble, for you must return to Via Vittorio Emanuele. 

So between the churches and the gardens, after pass- 
ing the shaved cypresses of Villa Gamba, a building 
of the sixteenth century, you come at last into the little 
village of Settimello on the first low spur of the hills. 

Settimello, the village of the seventh milestone, is 
famous, if at all, by reason of its poet Arrigo or Ar- 
righetto da Settimello who sang, alas, in Latin, in the 
very dawn of Letters, at the end of the twelfth century. 
Who thinks of him to-day ? Yet he was the most ap- 
plauded writer of his time, and even now if you will 
take the trouble to read it the De Diver sitate Fortunae 
et Philosophiae Consolatione has both beauty and de- 
light, while long and long ago it was held to be so fine 
that it served in the public schools as an example 
of rare Latinity. Indeed, in his Vite degli Uomini 
Illustri Filippo Villani speaks of Arrighetto as a man 
of the finest sort of genius, of easy and ready invention. 
He was born here in Settimello oi ^oor contadzni ; but 
he gave himself to study, especially of poetry, and being 
ordained priest became Pievano of Calenzano, not far 
away on its beautiful hill. He lost it, however, after 
a long lawsuit and returned to Settimello to die. And 
there in the church you may read his epitaph, written 
in the eighteenth century. 

Henrico. Septimellensi. 
Qui. Saeculo. Christi. XII, Calentianensis. 
Plebis. Sacerdotio. Functus. Eodemque. per. 
Summum. Iniuriam. Orbotus. Pauperrimae. 
Vitae. Incommoda. Elegiaco. Veementissimo. 
Carmine. Deflens. Latium. Melos. Situ. 
Obsitum. ad. Priscae. Venustatis. Normam. 
Erexit. et. Obscurum. Patriae. Nomen. 
Illustravit, 



240 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

As you return from the by-way in which the church 
stands, at the corner of Via Vittorio Emanuele, in 
the middle of the village is a tabernacle which still 
keeps its fresco of Madonna with our Lord in her arms 
surrounded by many saints ; it is the work of some 
follower of Giotto. Then, following the road you come 
out of Settimello, where the road forks keeping straight 
on, turning neither right nor left till after passing a 
group of houses you mount a steep bridge across the 
Chiosina. 

From that bridge a wonderful view opens before you. 
To the north lies the mass of Monte Morello, blue and 
violet and rosy and gold in the varying light of the 
day; while Settimello as you see lies on its lowest 
bastion called indeed Le Capelle. There on the west- 
ern slope under the great mountain, in the middle 
distance lies the towered villa — villa or castle is it ? — 
of Baroncoli, built early in the fifteenth century by the 
family of that name and later in possession of the 
Ginori. Farther west but nearer to you, rises the hill 
of S. Donato, and opposite to it, west and south, the 
walled village of Calenzano, as of old very fair and 
seeming impregnable. 

S. Donato indeed as seen from this bridge seems 
just a church and one immense castellated villa, and 
indeed on closer acquaintance it proves to be just 
that. 

Following the road over another bridge, among the 
first houses by the wayside, beside a shrine, you turn to 
the right into Via de' Betti, and climbing, come into 
S. Donato. 

The Pieve of Calenzano, mistress once of twelve 
churches, stands nearly a mile away from the Castello 
of Calenzano, on a hill divided from it by a stream. 
The tower is still fine, picturesque, with outstanding 
battlements like a crown, and above them a short strong 







AT THE GATE OF CALENZANO 



CALENZANO 241 

tower. The colouring of the place too is lovely, ex- 
quisitely rosy amid the green and grey of the cypresses 
and olives, the shadows on the hills. And here better 
almost than anywhere else in Tuscany you may under- 
stand how great and considerable a personage 2ipievano 
was.i That huge and splendid villa, battlemented like 
a castle, was his canonica. There he ruled his twelve 
churches, and there in the pleasant country quiet the 
Bishop of Prato came to visit him. Later the place 
seems to have fallen into the hands of the Medici if 
we may judge by their scattered arms. 

The beauty and interest of Calenzano itself is cer- 
tainly not less than that of its Pieve. You pass down 
the steep way from S. Donato into the valley, and cross 
the Marina, only to climb, by a steeper road still, up 
to the old castello, surrounded, in part at least, by its 
ancient walls, its great gateway on either side letting 
you in and out, while behind those ivy-clad bastions, 
those terraced vineyards and olive gardens, rise the 
gaunt bare hills wooded but half-way to the top. 

Entering Calenzano by this way you must pass in 
by the great northern gate, under the guard-house so 
silent now, as at S. Fiora on Mont' Amiata. And 
truly, even with Malmantile in mind, I think there is no 
place in Northern Tuscany that gives you so fine an idea 
of what a castello really was as Calenzano. It was, 
and for the most part it remains, a walled village clus- 
tered round a fortress. 

The fortress was that of the Conti Guidi. Conte 
Guido Vecchio died in 12 13. "As to him," says 
Villani, "it is said that in ancient times his forebears 
were great barons in Germany which came over with 
the Emperor Otho I., who gave them territory in Rom- 

^ Cf. also my In Unknown Tuscany^ with notes by William 
Hey wood. \In the press.] 
16 



242 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

agna and there they remained ; and afterwards their de- 
scendants, by reason of their power, were lords over 
almost all Ro magna and made their headquarters in 
Ravenna, but because of the outrages they wrought 
on the citizens concerning their wives, and other tyran- 
nies, in a popular tumult they were driven out of 
Ravenna and pursued and slain in one day, so that 
none escaped either small or great, save one young 
child which was named Guido; the which was at 
Modigliana at nurse, and was surnamed Guido 
Besangue through the disaster of his family. . . . This 
Guido was the father of Count Guido Vecchio whence 
all the Guidi are descended. This Count Guido Vec- 
chio took to wife the daughter of Messer Bellincione 
Berti^ of the Rovignani, which was the greatest and 
the most honoured knight in Florence, and his houses 
which were at Porta San Piero above the Old Gate 
descended by heritage to the counts. This lady was 
named Gualdrada,^ and he took her for her beauty and 
her fine speech, beholding her in S. Reparata with the 
other ladies and maidens of Florence. For when the 
Emperor Otho IV. came to Florence and saw the fair 
ladies of the city assembled in Santa Reparata in his 
honour, this maiden most pleased the Emperor, and 
her father saying to the Emperor that he had it in his 
power to bid her kiss him, the maiden made answer 
that there was no man living which should kiss her save 
he were her husband, for which speech the Emperor 
much commended her ; and the said Count Guido being 
taken with love of her by reason of her graciousness 
and by the counsel of the said Otho the Emperor, 
took her to wife not regarding that she was of less 
noble lineage than he nor regarding her dowry : whence 
all the Counts Guidi are born. . . ." 

^Cf. Dante, Par.^ xv., 211 ; xvi., 99. 

'^Cf. Dante, Par., xvi., 94-99; Inferno, xvi., 37. 



CALENZANO 243 

Thus the Guidi came into Tuscany. They held 
many castles, as we know, more important than 
Calenzano, but already in 1203, ten years before Guido 
Vecchio's death, they were fighting with the Pistolesi, 
who had taken their Castello of Montemurlo. The 
Florentines got that back again for them, but their 
power in Calenzano does not seem to have endured 
any longer than their power in Florence. With the 
advent of the great quarrel they took refuge in their 
eyries and especially in Casentino. However that may 
be, and some of them were Guelfs and some Ghibel- 
lines, and some both Guelf and Ghibelline,^ Calen- 
zano soon passed into the power of other maguati. 
Whoever held it in 1260 was a Guelf, for after the 
great battle of Montaperto, in the hot September 
weather when the vines were loaded with grapes, the 
Ghibellines sacked and destroyed the Castelvecchio. 
Then Castruccio Castracani sacked and burnt the 
place in 1325, and finally in 135 1 it fell into the hands 
of Visconti of Milan. Rebuilt and munitioned for 
war by the Republic of Florence in 1352, it defended 
itself not without a certain success when Hawkwood 
and his Englishmen swept over the Fiorentino in the 
following year. Then it seems to have fallen into 
decay and to have been almost deserted. Little re- 
mains to it save its gates and walls and towers from 
the fourteenth century. The Church of S. Niccolb is 
the ancient chapel of the castello, it keeps about it 
still certain traces of its antiquity, its chief treasure 
being a fine Giottesque picture of the Annunciation. 

Do not be in a hurry to leave Calenzano, there are 
but few places in these beautiful valleys half so fair as 
she, and none with just her aspect of strength, that 
has passed into sweetness with beauty and peace. But 

^ Villani, Cronica, lib. v., cap. 37. 



244 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

when at last you leave her at the end of a summer 
day, you will pass out by the southern gate, that 
beautiful gate which from the valley in itself looks 
truly like a fortress. Thence the road winds down into 
the valley to the railway, to the station. The trains 
are few, but there is always one at evening, and the 
way to Sesto (where you would find the tram), not 
under the hills, but across the dusty plain, has neither 
interest nor beauty. So let it be by train that you 
pass out of the summer twilight of the hills, where 
Calenzano, all stained with gold, looks far away to- 
ward Tazzia and Signa, to the night of Florence, with 
the songs of the hills in your heart. 



XV 



RUSCIANO, PARADISO, BADIA A RIPOLI, 
BADIA A CANDELI, RIGNALLA, VICCHIO 
A RIMAGGIO, AND QUARTO 

OUTSIDE the Porta S. Niccolo on the way to 
Bagno a Ripoli, just beyond La Mattonaja, a 
little by-way climbs the hill on the right to the great 
villa that Brunelleschi built for Luca Pitti, Villa di 
Rusciano. How often it has changed masters it would 
be difficult to say, even Sacchetti notices the number 
and variety of its owners ; but then it is very old, and 
its ancestors have stood there since the time of Charle- 
magne and even before that, for he gave it to the 
Church of S. Miniato al Monte. Three hundred years 
later Pope Nicholas II. handed it over to the Ospedale 
di S. Eusebio ; then it came into the hands of the 
sisters Buoninsegna and Princia, and they in 1267 sold 
it with its lands to the nuns of S. Jacopo in Pian di 
Ripoli. Then more than a hundred and fifty years 
later Luca Pitti, at the height of his prosperity, bought 
the place, and by the hand of Brunelleschi, in 1474, be- 
gan the beautiful villa which to-day crowns the hill, and 
is indeed rather, as Vasari said, " a luxurious and superb 
palace" than a villa. It might seem, however, that 
Brunelleschi only repaired and added to the older villa, 
for while the eastern part seems to be his, the western 

245 



246 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

is certainly more ancient, and the southern is work of 
the late sixteenth century. 

" One of the glories of Rusciano," writes Mrs. Ross 
in the book I have so often quoted,^ "one of the 
glories of Rusciano, much written about by critics, is 
a most beautiful window looking into the courtyard, 
but lately covered in. It is said by some to be by 
Brunelleschi, but the exaggerated consoles ornamented 
with acanthus leaves, and the pillars at the sides with 
Corinthian capitals, are not like the work of the great 
master. The garlands of flowers at the sides, tied in 
here and there, remind one of those on the monument 
to Marsuppini by Desiderio da Settignano, as does the 
delicate frieze at the top. Herr von Fabriczy suggests 
that this lovely window, which recalls those of the 
palaces at Urbino and Gubbio, may perhaps have been 
designed by Luciano da Laurana, architect to Federigo 
di Montefeltro, to whom, as we shall see, the villa be- 
longed for a short time. Anyhow this one richly orna- 
mented piece of architecture contrasts strangely with 
the absolute simplicity, almost amounting to bareness, 
of everything else in the courtyard. Dr. Carl von 
Stegmann, in his Architekten der Renaissance, thinks the 
frieze and the shape of the capitals are in the style of 
Desiderio da Settignano, while the garlands of flowers 
remind him more of the work of Benedetto da Majano. 
The rooms of the villa are of huge size, and many still 
retain their flne old wooden ceilings, gigantic beams 
resting on simply shaped consoles with curved out- 
lines." 

Pride goeth before a fall — yet Luca Pitti forgot it 
quite. " So foolish was he in his own conceit," Machia- 
velli tells us, *' that he began at one time two stately 
and magnificent houses, one in Florence, the other at 

^ Janet Ross, Florentine F^7Za5, p. 38, 



RUSCIANO 247 

Rusciano, not more than a mile away, but that in Flor- 
ence was greater and more splendid than the house of 
any other private citizen whatsoever. To finish this 
latter he baulked no extraordinary way, for not only 
the citizens and better sort presented him and furnished 
him with what was necessary for it, but the common 
people gave him all of their assistance ; besides, all 
that were banished or guilty of murder, felony, or any 
other thing which exposed them to punishment, had 
sanctuary at that house provided they would give him 
their labour." 

Now, when Cosimo was dead, and Piero de' Medici 
was the head of that family, Niccolo Soderini was 
made Gonfaloniere of Justice, and, thinking to secure 
the liberty of the city, he began many good things, but 
perfected nothing, so that he left his house with less 
honour than he entered into it. This fortified Piero's 
party exceedingly, so that his enemies began to resent 
it and to work together to consider how they might 
kill him, for in supporting Galenzzo Maria Sforza to 
the dukedom of Milan — which his father Francesco, 
just dead, had stolen for himself — they saw, or thought 
they saw, the way in which Piero would deal if he 
could with Florence. Thus the Mountain, as the party 
of his enemies was called, leaned threatening to crush 
him surely every day. But Piero, who lay sick at Careggi, 
armed himself, as did his friends, who were few in the 
city. Now the leaders of his enemies were Luca Pitti, 
Dietosalvi, Neroni, Agnolo Acciajuoli and most 
courageous of all Niccolo Soderini. He, taking arms, 
as Piero had done, and followed by most of the people 
of his quarter, went one morning to Luca's house, en- 
treating him to mount and ride with him to Palazzo 
Vecchio for the security of the senate, who, as he said, 
were of hisside. "To do this," said he, "is victory." 
But Luca had no mind for this game, for many reasons, 



2 48 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

— for one, he had already received promises and rewards 
from Piero ; for another, he had married one of his 
nieces to Giovanni Tornabuoni, — so that, instead of 
joining him, he admonished Soderini to lay down his 
arms and return quietly to his house. In the mean- 
time the senate, with the magistrates, had closed the 
doors of Palazzo Vecchio without appearing for either 
side, though the whole city was in tumult. After 
much discussion they agreed, since Piero could not be 
present, for he was sick, to go to him in his palace, 
but Soderini would not. So they set out without him ; 
and arrived, one was deputed to speak of the tumult, 
and to declare that they who first took arms were re- 
sponsible ; and that, understanding Piero was the man, 
they came to be informed of his design and to know 
whether it were for the advantage of the city. Piero 
made answer that not they who first took arms were 
blameworthy but they who gave occasion first : that if 
they considered their behaviour towards him, their 
meetings at night, their subscriptions and practices to 
defeat him, they would not wonder at what he had 
done; that he desired nothing but his own security, and 
that Cosimo and his sons knew him to live honourably 
in Florence, either with or without a Balia. Then, 
turning on Dietosalvi and his brothers who were all 
present, he reproached them severely for the favours 
they had received from Cosimo, and the great in- 
gratitude which they had returned ; which reprimand 
was delivered with so much zeal that, had not Piero 
himself restrained them, there were some present who 
would certainly have killed them. So he had it his 
own way, and presently, new senators being chosen 
and another gonfaloniere, the people were called to- 
gether in the piazza and a new Balia was created, all 
of Piero's creatures. This so terrified " The Moun- 
tain " that they fled out of the city, but Luca Pitti re- 



RUSCIANO AND LUCA PITTI 249 

mained, trusting in Giovanni Tornabuoni and the 
promises of Piero. Now mark his fall. '' He quickly 
learned the difference between victory and misfortune, 
betwixt honour and disgrace. His house, which for- 
merly was thronged with visitors and the better sort 
of citizens, was now grown solitary and unfrequented. 
When he appeared abroad in the streets his friends 
and relations were not only afraid to accompany him, 
but even to own or salute him, for some of them had 
lost their honours for doing it, some their estates, and 
all of them were threatened. The noble structures 
which he had begun were given over by the workmen, 
the good deeds requited with contumely, the honours 
he had conferred with infamy and disgrace. For many 
persons who in the day of his authority had loaded 
him with presents, required them again in his distress, 
pretending they were but loans and no more. Those 
who before had cried him to the skies, cursed him down 
as fast for his ingratitude and violence ; so that now, 
when it was too late, he began to repent himself that 
he had not taken Soderini's advice and died honour- 
ably, seeing that he must now live with dishonour." 

But Luca Pitti was not only " wise in his own con- 
ceit," as Machiavelli says, but "a weathercock, more- 
over badly surrounded," as Alessandra Strozzi knew. 
After all his plots he abandoned his anti-Medicean 
faction and accepted pardon at the hands of Piero. 

So when in 1472, the Florentines, grateful for once, 
received the Captain-General of their army, Conte 
Federigo di Montefeltro, outside the gates and led him 
in procession to Piazza Signoria where he was publicly 
thanked for his services and given a richly dressed horse 
and a silver helmet set with jewels and chased in gold 
with Hercules trampling on a gryphon as its crest, all 
made by Pollajuolo, Luca Pitti was glad to sell 
Rusciano cheaply to the Republic that they might 



250 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

present it to their general with the freedom of their 
city. 

Federigo loved his mountains too well to stay long 
here in the valley, but the villa remained to his house till 
Guidobaldo, his successor, sold it to the Frescobaldi, 
since when it has passed from hand to hand, Baron von 
Stumm being the present owner. 

Returning from Rusciano to the old Via Aretina,^ 
in about a quarter of a mile you come to cross roads 
where on the right, beside a spoiled shrine. Via del 
Paradiso leaves the highway. Following the way of 
Paradise, in a few moments you come to a group of 
wretched houses, and there behind them is all that is 
left of the Monastero di S. Salvatore e di S. Brigida. 

The Badiuzza al Paradiso, or S. Maria di Fabroro as 
it used to be called before it was translated in the eigh- 
teenth century to the neighbouring church of the then 
lately suppressed nuns of the Brigidiane at Paradiso, 
was in the possession of an Order which consisted of 
religious of both sexes, who had in common both 
the church and the monastery, but, as might be sup- 
posed, were themselves completely separated. 

In 1390 Antonio di Niccolajo degli Alberti, one of 
the richest and most powerful of the citizens of Flor- 
ence,2 founded a great monastery in the poderi of one 
of his villas and gave it to the Order of S. Bridget of 
Sweden. This Order, founded by S. Bridget in 1344, 
is reckoned among the Benedictine congregations, be- 
cause while Bridget gave her nuns her own rule, she 
ordered that whatever might be found wanting should 
be supplied by the Rule of S. Benedict. 

Married to Ulpho Prince of Novica, Bridget con- 
verted him by her "efficacious words," and before he 
died he became a Cistercian : so she built a monas- 

1 See supra, p. 105 et seq. 

2 See Carocci, op. cit., p. 114. 



PARADISO 251 

tery on her estate of Wastein, under the rule of the 
Holy Saviour — S. Salvatore — which she said she had 
received from Him. The Order was a double one, and 
" the men were subject to the nuns of the related house 
... for the honour of our Lady ". ^ Then, as the 
Breviary tells us, she " came to Rome, moved there- 
to by God," and there she brought much holiness. 
" She reproved the clergy with severity for the profane 
life they led, and freely announced to Gregory XL the 
reform which God desired of the Church and Roman 
Court, threatening his near death and judgment at the 
tribunal of Jesus Christ if he should not obey." 

Having won favour in Rome, she found Florence 
not slow to welcome her. The new Order was enriched 
by the city, many of the greatest families joining in 
the liberality of the Alberti. When, however, soon 
after, that family fell into disgrace and all its wealth 
and possessions were confiscated, the city did not spare 
even the patrimony of the new Order. So the Religious 
fled away, till in 140T the Signoria ordered the restitu- 
tion to the monks and nuns of Paradiso of all that 
which had been taken from them. 

Later, Carocci tells us, in 1472 Brigida, daughter of 
Antonio Alberti, gave all her possessions to the monas- 
tery. In 1529 the place suffered in the siege, so that 
the religious again fled away, but they returned in 
1530 to find their house ruined by the soldiery. The 
rule, however, seems to have become very lax, and we 
hear of the Pope discouraging novices, and in 1734 the 
Order was forbidden to take postulants, so that by 1776 
the monastery had indeed ceased to exist ; the few 
nuns left having taken themselves to the Convent of 
S. Ambrogio. 

The church, now reduced to a chapel, is almost com- 

^Tuker and Malleson, Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome, 
vol. iii., p. 118. 



252 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

pletely lost sight of in the midst of the poor houses by 
which it is surrounded. You enter at No. 26 into a 
little court, adjoining the chapel. It is not, however, 
there that we can find to-day, amid the ruin, any 
vestige of ancient beauty, but in the church quite in 
this court, a mere barn, now utterly spoiled and ruined, 
where Spinello Aretino has painted very beautifully 
the life of Jesus Christ in fresco. Indeed, spoiled 
though they are, and surrounded by modern squalor 
and indifference, these frescoes are among the most 
surprising and lovely things beyond the city gates ; 
and though they cannot now compare with the work 
of the same master near Antella, they have for us much 
of the same surprise. 

Once more we return to Via Aretina, and following 
it come in about half a mile to the Badia di S. Barto- 
lommeo a Ripoli, now just a parish church, for the 
old abbey has been destroyed. It was a nunnery as 
early as the eighth century, passing, when we do not 
know, to a company of monks who were living there 
in 1092. We are ignorant under what rule these 
cenobites lived, but they seem to have been of some 
military Order. By 1188 they were subject to the 
Abbot of Vallombrosa, and his rule was confirmed to 
him by Innocent III. in 1198 and again in 1204. It 
was not, however, till 1473 that the monastery became 
part of the Vallombrosan possessions. In that year it 
was converted into an infirmary for the monks of that 
congregation, and it remained such till in 1550 it be- 
came the residence of the General of the Order, and 
as such it was used till its suppression by the French 
in 1808. 

There is but little to see to-day in the church, a 
few late pictures over the altars, the fifteenth century 
inlaid press in the sacristy, and a beautiful tabernacle, 
sculptured also in the fifteenth century. 



BADIA A CANDELI 253 

In the great Piazza, before the Badia, we turn to the 
left, and then taking the second turning to the right 
come to the Church of S. Piero in Palco. A church 
was built here long and long ago called S. Pietro in 
Bisarno, because what is now merely the highest part 
of the plain on this side Arno was then an island in the 
midst of the river. Restored many times, its greatest 
period seems to have been the fifteenth century when 
it was all painted within in fresco. The floods and the 
stupidity of man together have left but little of these 
beautiful works ; indeed little is to be seen there to- 
day of what was doubtless once so glorious, but a few 
fragments of the story of the Blessed Virgin and the 
story of Samxpietro. A few late works stand over the 
altars, but it is a fifteenth century bas-relief we see in 
the Antinori chapel, the second on the right, Madonna 
with our Lord in her arms, while in the sacristy is a 
small panel, part of the predella of some fourteenth 
century altar-piece. 

Returning to the by-way, we follow it some hundred 
yards farther, and then where it meets another way we 
turn to the right, winding past the Antinori Villa, till at 
last, where we may, we turn to the left towards the 
Rovezzano ferry and then to the right by a pleasant 
road beside the river, which we follow, taking the road 
to the left after passing the weir, till in some two miles 
we reach on the lower slopes of the hills the Badia a 
Candeli. 

The abbey, so beautifully set on the hillside among 
its olives and cypresses, was founded in the middle of 
the twelfth century, and before many years came into 
the hands of the Camaldolesi monks, who held it till 
1526, when Clement VII. gave it to the Vallombrosans, 
who built a new abbey there. For the Camaldolesi 
Domenico Ghirlandajo painted an altar-piece, which, 
alas, has now been imprisoned in the Uffizi. And of 



2 54 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

all the pictures that the monks once gathered here all 
that remains is a panel by Bicci di Lorenzo. Like 
the Abbey at Ripoli, S. Andrea a Candeli is to-day 
just a parish church, while the monastery has become 
the canonica. 

A fine walk through the valley by the road, leaving 
the highway on the left and following the river up- 
stream for a mile and a half, when, after crossing a little 
torrent, you turn uphill to the left by a by-way, coming 
in a quarter of a mile or so to Rignalla, should not be 
missed. 

Rignalla was a stronghold of the Abati, who, till the 
fourteenth century, were the patrons of the little church 
of S. Maria there. In 1,441, however, as an inscrip- 
tion, a copy, Carocci says, of an old one, tells us, the 
Conte Spinelli and Tommaso, his brother, caused the 
church to be rebuilt. On the fa9ade we find the 
Spinelli arms, and beside the church a tabernacle with 
a fine fifteenth century fresco of S. Thomas and our 
Lord with S. Jerome and S. Francis. Nothing of much 
interest remains within ; only a coloured stucco relief 
of the fifteenth century perhaps, where we see Madonna 
with Christ in her lap. 

From Rignalla we continue on our way uphill, till, 
where the by-way we have followed meets the highroad, 
we turn to the right, returning by the hills to the Badia 
a Candeli. 

Just before reaching the church a by-way leaves the 
main road to the left, uphill, towards Vicchio di 
Rimaggio. It is scarcely more than half a mile from 
Candeli. Vicchio di Rimaggio was undoubtedly 
built close to a Roman Vico : and while only the church 
has any interest for us to-day, the whole village is of 
very ancient origin. S. Lorenzo, however, in spite of 
numerous restorations, keeps still something of its early 
character. The portico, for instance, is at least as old 



VICCHIO DI RIMAGGIO 255 

as the fifteenth century, and then there are still left two 
frescoes there, a lunette with the half figure of S. 
Lorenzo between two angels, and a tondo with a youth- 
ful saint praying. Within, the walls were of old covered 
with frescoes, the remains of which were uncovered 
some fourteen years ago, so that we see now on the 
right the Nativity of our Lord, painted in 1480 Carocci 
tells us,i and in other parts of the church the life of 
the Blessed Virgin and the life of S. Lorenzo. 

Something, however, more than these beautiful 
shadows remain to us from the days when the church 
was as it were the palace of the poor. For over the 
first altar on the right is a picture on a gold ground of 
the Virgin enthroned with our Lord in her arms and 
around her stand S. Antonio Abate, S. Niccolo di Bari, 
S. Martino and S. Lucia.^ Over the second altar is a 
very ancient panel representing Madonna enthroned, 
probably from the thirteenth century. In the choir 
are two tabernacles of the fifteenth century (1480), 
while over the high altar is a curious crucifix that has 
been attributed to Donatello, but that is certainly no 
longer his work. The sacristy still keeps its beautiful 
lavabo, exquisitely sculptured by some artist of the 
quattrocento with figures of angels and flowers and 
fruit. 

Returning to the by-road by which we came, we 
follow it till at the first turning to the right we leave it, 
and following the new road for something less than a 
mile take the second turning to the left, coming pre- 
sently to the village and church of Quarto, only a few 
hundred yards from Bagno a Ripoli, where you may 
find the tram for Florence. This village of Quarto 
stood above the fourth milestone on the old road to 

^Cf. Carocci, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 40. 

^Carocci {op. cit., vol. ii., p. 41) thinks this picture is of the 
school of Lorenzo di Niccolo. 



256 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Rome ; hence its name. Its church of S. Maria dates, 
it is said, from the eighth century,^ but what of anti- 
quity is left to it seems to be work of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries. It is to the latter that the 
picture of Madonna with our Lord is owing that to-day 
stands over the altar on the north. 

^Carocci, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 47, and Moreni agrees; but 
Repetti, op. cit., vol. iv., p. 6gi, says: " Se ignorasi I'epoca della 
fondazione di questa ultima chiesa, attualmente rifatta, e noto 
pero che essa esistiva fino dal sec. xiii. ..." 



XVI 

FROM FIESOLE TO SALETTA, MONTEREGGI, 
THE CONVENT OF S. MARIA MADDA- 
LENA IN VAL DI MUGNONE, S. ANDREA 
A SVEGLIA, S. LORENZO A BASCIANO, 
AND FONTELUCENTE 1 

THE country behind Fiesole, the Val di Mugnone, 
under Monte Senario, is one of the most beauti- 
ful and one of the most interesting of the valleys in the 
Fiorentino. Far more bare and wild than the Val 
d'Arno or any of the valleys which from the Florentine 
plain run southward into the Sanese, it is perhaps less 
known than any of them, yet it offers to the traveller 
a variety of scenery and a number of churches that are 
seldom without some priceless picture or statue, and are 
certainly not inferior to anything which may be found 

^This walk, too, can for the most part be driven. To visit 
S. Andrea de Sveglia, S. Bastiano and S. Lorenzo a Basciano, 
the carriage can either be sent on to the ford about a mile be- 
yond Le Caldine toward Fiesole, thus entailing a walk of two 
miles and a half, or returning from S. Maria Maddalena a mile 
along the Via Faenza to where the road to S. Andrea a Sveglia 
leaves it on the left, it can be easily followed through that village 
and S, Bastiano, the Via Faenza being found again at Le Cal- 
dine, omitting S. Lorenzo a Basciano altogether. By carriage 
the Via Faenza should then be followed into Florence and the 
climb up to Fiesole abandoned. 

17 257 



258 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

nearer to the city. Altogether hidden from Florence by 
the great hills of Fiesole, the Val di Mugnone is served 
very poorly by the single line of railway which crosses 
the Apennines to Faenza, and which in this enclosed 
valley begins its ascent. And because of the winding 
of the line doubling through many a tunnel back on 
itself there is really in all the valley but one station, 
that at Le Caldine, for by the time the line reaches 
Montorsoli on the Via Bolognese it has wound quite 
out of the valley of the Mugnone. It is, happily, still 
the road which serves this strong and secret country, 
hidden away between Monte Senario and Fiesole, the 
heights of Montereggi, some two thousand feet above 
the sea, and that line of hills which on the north separ- 
ates the Mugnone from the Terzollina. 

Leaving the tram on the hilltop at Fiesole, you follow 
again Via Ferrucci,^ till in about a mile and a half com- 
ing to Via Giovanni Leader, which before you took, 
now you refuse it, keeping straight on ; though when in 
a few yards thence the road forks, you keep to the left, 
refusing, however, a little farther on a way that leads 
under the cypresses down into the valley. The high- 
way you are on, winding round the hillside, leads at 
last to Montereggi, and all along the way there opens 
before you a marvellous view of hill and mountain and 
valley, closed on the north by the towering mass of 
Monte Senario with its wooded convent shining against 
the sky, on the west by Monte Morello and the low, 
beautiful hills that come down from Pratolino towards 
the city between Terzollina and Mugnone, while south- 
ward Fiesole shuts out Florence, and on the east the 
hills rise to the Plana di S. Clemente. 

It is a walk of some two miles from the corner of 
Via Giovanni Leader to Saletta, that little village which 

J See p. 60 et seq. 



LA SALETTA 259 

stands just under the highway on the hills, the pink 
belfry of its tiny church being indeed but a stone's 
throw from the road. A good part of this country 
from very ancient times, from 890 certainly, has been 
in the possession of the Bishops of Fiesole, by a gift, 
as it is said, of Guido, King of Italy.^ The corte called 
Sala or Saletta, is especially mentioned in the document 
referred to by Repetti — Sala sub castro Faesulae — and 
was confirmed to the bishops with the rest of this 
country by Otho II. in 984, by Pope Paschalis II. 
in 1 103, and Pope Innocent II. in 1134. The great 
secular lords of this country on the slopes of Monte- 
reggi seem to have been the Caponsacchi, who, as 
Villani tells us, dwelt in Florence, " near the Mercato 
Vecchio and were Fiesolan magnates," ^ in Cacciaguida's 
time — 

Gia era il Caponsacco nel mercato 
Disceso giu da Fiesole.^ 

They were certainly patrons of the Church of S. Mar- 
gherita a Saletta, which, small as it is, is not without 
its treasures, for some pupil of Andrea della Robbia 
has carved there a Madonna adoring her little Son, one 
of the most charming works of the school in all this 
valley. 

Returning to the highroad and continuing on our 
way, we come in another half-mile to a tabernacle on 
the right, where a road leaves the way to the left just 
beyond the Villa Monetti. 

Villa Monetti, for all its look of modernity, is very 
old, and though it does not seem ever to have belonged 
to the Caponsacchi, it was for five centuries, Carocci 
tells us, in the possession of the great Florentine family 

^See Repetti, op. cit., vol. iii., p. 499. 
2 Villani, Cronica, lib. iv., cap. ii. 
^ Dante, Paradiso, xvi., 121-22. 



2 6o COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of Busini, who, always to the fore from the earliest 
times when fighting was on hand, even in the sixteenth 
century defended Florence with all their might during 
the great siege. The family became extinct in the 
first years of the eighteenth century, the property here 
passing to Piero Filippo Uguccioni. 

It is scarcely more than half a mile from Villa Mon- 
etti to the Pieve di S. Ilario a Montereggi. As we 
have seen, it was one of the Kings of Italy who gave 
all this country to the Bishops of Fiesole, and it is from 
them that Montereggi gets its name, Mons Regis, the 
King's Hill as we might say. One of the most ancient 
churches in the diocese of Fiesole, S. Ilario, was certainly 
in the fourteenth century in the patronage of another 
Florentine family, the Baldovinetti, whose arms are 
still on the fagade. It possesses almost nothing either 
beautiful or interesting, for its antiquity has been hidden 
by innumerable restorations, and the only work of art 
which remains to it is a ciborium from the fifteenth 
century. 

The real interest of Montereggi lies to-day in its 
aqueduct, for, as Repetti tells us, it has for centuries 
supplied the great aqueduct of Fiesole and under the 
Grand Dukes the Fountain in the Piazza del Granduca, 
as he calls it, the Piazza Signoria as we should say, 
with water. The inexhaustible springs of Montereggi 
are gathered here into a canal and led into the bed of 
the Mugnone, turning five mills on their way. The 
work was perfected, for by that time part of Florence 
was dependent upon these springs, by Leopoldo L, 
who built a new conduit which brought water not only 
to the fountains, but to the Grand Ducal houses, and 
the Spedale di S. Maria Nuova. Nor has the modern 
city less need than of old of the Fonti di Montereggi, 
the city to-day being indeed more than ever dependent 
upon them. 



VIA FAENTINA 261 

From Montereggi we return on our way so far as 
the tabernacle by Villa Monetti : there turning down 
to the right, we follow a winding road into the valley. 
In about a quarter of a mile, passing thus through the 
woods and vineyards, we come to a great Casa Colonica 
standing beside the way on the left among the olives. 
Casa delle Monache a Ripoli, the peasants call it, and 
indeed it was a sister house of the Dominican nuns of 
S. Jacopo di Ripoli. A few hundred yards farther on 
we come upon one of the mills, II Mulino Nuovo, that 
were driven from the aqueduct of Montereggi, and 
following thus about and about through the vineyards 
and olive gardens, in another half-mile we find ourselves 
on the Via Faentina. Turning, here in the valley, left 
along the highway, back towards Fiesole, it is some 
three-quarters of a mile along this great and ancient 
way to the little Convent of S. Maria Maddalena in 
Pian di Mugnofie. 

Here by the wayside, on the verge of the olive gardens, 
I ate my mid-day meal in the company of a poor man 
who was going to Faenza. We had, indeed, no market 
of dainties there, but, as Petrarch describes, " a poet's 
banquet and that not of Juvenal's or Flaccus' kind, 
but the pastoral sort that Virgil describes : ' mellow 
apples, soft chestnuts and rich store of milky curd,' " 
and that we found at a cottage hard by. The rest was 
harder fare : a coarse, stiff loaf. ... But why make 
a long story : you guess the roughness of both place 
and fare, and indeed as the parasite in Plautus wittily 
says, I needed shoes not only on my feet, but on my 
teeth also. 

Lying there in the sunshine in the heat of the early 
afternoon, we began to talk of the way, for the Via 
Faentina lay before us, and my companion was, as I 
have said, on his way to Faenza. 

Presently he went on his road and I on mine, he 



262 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

eastward, and I west. And as I went, slowly because 
of the sun, I fell to thinking of the way he had come, 
of the way he must go. 

The Via Faenza or Faentina leaves Florence by the 
same gate. Porta S. Gallo, as the Via Bolognese ; the 
two separate just outside the city, the Via Faenza 
crossing Ponte Rosso and climbing eastward by the 
right bank of the Mugnone, passing through the borgo 
di S. Marco Vecchio to the Ponte alia Badia, where it 
crosses the torrent just under S. Domenico. It winds 
with the river round the western base of the Fiesolan 
hills, and, keeping to the valley of the Mugnone for 
many miles, crosses the hills at last at L'Olmo under 
Monte Senario, where it enters the valley of the Sieve. 
It crosses that stream, too, by a bridge, just before 
Borgo S. Lorenzo, climbing the Apennines by Ronta 
and Raggiolo to Colla di Casaglia, whence it descends 
into the transapennine valley of the Lamone. It 
follows the Lamone downwards through Marradi and 
Brisighella for the most part on the right bank to the 
city of Faenza in the great plain, where it joins the 
^milian Way, for Bologna or Rimini. 

Why has no learned poet of our day written a book 
De Viis, on the old roads of Italy ? There is not one 
of them but has its story. And truly I for one cannot 
walk a mile along any one of them without curiosity 
as to its birth and destination. Yet I might seem, in 
this also, to be alone in my love. There is the Via 
Francigena, our fathers knew it well, that leads from 
Gaul to Rome,^ but that is a mediaeval way. Why 
has no one ever sung the adventures of Via Appia, Via 
Emilia, Via Latina or Via Flaminia. They are human 
enough and have long memories. Whence do they 

^For a page on this mediaeval highway, see In Unknown 
Tuscany, by Edward Hutton, with notes by William Heywood. 
\In the press.} 



VIA FAENTINA 263 

come, whither do they go, across the mountains and 
through the valleys ? Is it Rome or Ravenna or only 
Gaul that waits them at the end ? What cities have 
they seen, what hills have they crossed, how many 
bridges of the Romans may they count like quarterings 
in an ancient coat to prove their nobility. Perhaps 
the Legions thundered once along them, perhaps the 
pilgrims once sought Jesus by those endless ways, or 
in the wake of some carnival army ^a child wandered 
through a summer day, seeking its mother, borne away 
to the Eternal City. 

There is a road in Umbria, and indeed it is the Via 
Flaminia itself, which, as I know who have loved it 
above every other road in Italy, entering that sacred 
and beautiful country at Nocera (Norceria Camellana) 
passes through S. Giovanni Profiamma (Forum Fla- 
minii), Foligno (Fulginium), Bevagna (Mevania), and 
crossing the Monti Martini and the Giano comes into 
the valley again at Narni, where suddenly it comes to an 
end half-way across the river, there where the old beau- 
tiful bridge has been broken now these many centuries. 

Wandering one autumn day along the road from 
Pesaro to Urbino, — and it is a difficult road, — I re- 
membered all at once the way I was on, Via Flaminia, 
and that broken bridge at Narni far and far across the 
mountains. It was as though I was aware of a tragedy 
which was about to happen, a tragedy of which the 
chief actor had no knowledge. As that brave and 
ancient way pushed on up that difficult hill and I 
thought in my heart of the greatness of the Furlo Pass 
beyond, and of the mountains after Cagli, a sort of 
despair seized me. Why all this struggle, why this 
desperate persistence and resolve? Via Flaminia 
would never reach the Eternal City. Long and long 
ago it fell almost in sight of the Campagna by the Nar. 

Sulfurea Nar albus aqua fontesque velini. 



2 64 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

To those who have lived long with them, the roads 
of Italy at any rate have much of the humanity of 
the living world, they too are a part of life. If you 
follow them they will lead you where you would be, 
but their price is weariness and you must walk in the 
dust. If it be Faenza you set out for, be sure for all 
the hills, for all the windings by the way, you will win 
to it at last — to Faenza. It is only before the Eternal 
City there stands a broken bridge. 

So I, thinking of the way, came to the little Convent 
of S. Maria Maddalena. It stands above Via Faenza 
on the left, some half a mile towards Florence from 
the point where I joined it coming down from the hills. 
To-day a mere " national monument," it once belonged 
to the Dominican Friars of S. Marco in the city, who 
as we may remember at the bidding of Eugenius IV. 
and Cosimo de' Medici came down from S. Domenico 
under Fiesole to take possession of that convent in 
the city of which the Pope had just deprived the 
Sylvestrians.^ 

Before the middle of the fifteenth century there was 
a small spedaletto here by the roadside, in the posses- 
sion of the Cresci family, and it was one of them, 
Andrea di Cresci, who in 1460 "per 1' amore di Dio, 
e onore di S. Maria Maddalena," gave the spedaletto 
certain lands hereabout. Later the family gave the 
place to the Friars of S. Marco, who turned it into a 
small convent to which they sent such of their brethren 
as were sick.^ They held it till the stupid suppression 
of all such places. 

Spoiled though it is, a tiny girls' school to-day, it 
keeps much of its beauty still about it. Built, if not 
by Michelozzo himself — he who built S. Marco — cer- 

'^'^^Q.vcvy Florence and Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), 
pp. 206-g. 

2 Cf. Carocci, op. cit., vol. i., p. 174. 



S. MARIA MADDALENA 265 

tainly in his manner, the cloister is now dark and neg- 
lected, and the church a good deal restored. It is, 
however, not altogether stripped of its treasures, for 
there, over the high altar, you may see a lovely Giot- 
tesque picture on a gold ground of Madonna enthroned, 
seated on a crimson cushion, dressed in a blue robe, 
and in her arms is the Jesus Parvulus Himself, who 
gives us His blessing ; and on either side three angels 
wait, two of them swinging censers the while. Above 
is the Annunciation. 

Nor is this the only treasure of the church. " On 
the 22nd September, 15 15," a document tells us, still 
preserved among the records of the old ospizio, " on 
the 22nd September, 15 15, the figures of the Presepio 
were set up, to wit a Virgin clothed in black and a 
Joseph clothed in blue with the Child, and the ass and 
ox upon the hay, executed by the hand of Andrea della 
Robbia from alms procured and given by Frate Roberto 
Salviati."^ The greater part of these figures still re- 
mains in the church in a sort of cave or cupboard with 
a window looking into the nave on the south side near 
the door. Restored though they are, and re-painted 
and spoiled, they can, as it might seem, in spite of the 
document, never have been from Andrea's own hand, 
for indeed they are but the poorest school pieces.^ 

1 Libro Deb. e Cred. dell Ospizio di S. Maria Maddalena in 
Pian di Mugnone de' Frati di S. Marco, fol. 112. Quoted by 
Milanesi, Vasari, ii., i8o, note i. '^ Ricordo cojne adi 22 di set- 
tembre 1515 si missono le figure del presepio cioe una Vergine 
vestita di nero et uno Giuseppe vestito d" azzurro col Bambino et 
I'asino et il btie in sul fieno facto per mano di Andrea della 
Robbia di elemosine procurate et date da Frate Roberto Sal- 
viati." 

2 Maud Cruttwell, Luca and Andrea della Robbia, and their 
successors (Dent, 1902), pp. 200-1. Miss Cruttwell says that 
Signor Carocci "assures me that there is no room for doubt," 
that the figures we see to-day are the same as those the docu- 



2 66 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

But the curious, and to us at least, most interesting 
fact connected with this work is that the figures missing 
here at S. Maria Maddalena, namely, the figures of 
the Kings and an angel, though not the ox and the 
ass, are in part to be found in the Museum of the 
University of Oxford. The fragments collected there 
consist of " the upper parts of three figures, those of 
the elder and younger Kings . . . one clad in red and 
the other in blue, and of an angel, all painted in oils ". 
They formed part of the collection of the late Mr. 
Drury Fortnum, who gives the following interesting 
note in his own catalogue : " Fragments of the last 
work executed by Andrea della Robbia, and erected in 
a small church in the valley of the Mugnone (S. Maria 
Maddalena) in 1 5 1 5 . It represented the Adoration 
of the Magi ; a large group of figures painted, not 
enamelled. It fell from the wall, probably from an 
earthquake, and was broken. A portion is still there 
arranged as a Presepio ; these and other fragments 
were found by me thrown aside as valueless." 

It would certainly be foolish, as Miss Cruttwell 
suggests, to hold Andrea responsible for all the works 
sent out from his bottega in his old age. In 1 5 1 5 he 
was eighty years of age, and it is certain he had no 
hand in the production of this mediocre work. Some 
pupil of Fra Bartolommeo has painted in fresco an 
Annunciation over the window through which one now 
looks at the spurious work of Andrea della Robbia. 

Leaving S. Maria Maddalena and returning to the 
highroad, a little above the convent on the other side 
of the way stands a house and beside it a path lead- 
ing down to a ford across the Mugnone. Passing 
over the torrent there and crossing the railway and 

ment speaks of. " He adds that only a couple of years ago 
the figures were entirely concealed by draperies of stuffs and 
silks." 



ANNUNZIATINA 267 

more than one great ditch, we climb up to the little 
church on the hill-top, S. Bastiano. There is almost 
nothing to be seen there, as I found, yet the view 
both east and west is so fine that I was repaid for my 
climb. And then, just as I was turning away, a 
woman came towards me, a child in her arms, and 
seeing me peering about the church, inquired what I 
sought. "A picture," said I, "a picture or a fresco. 
Is it, then, that you have nothing here beautiful or 
precious ? " She looked over the beautiful valley, 
then, half-shyly turning to me, she looked me straight 
in the face. "Sissignore," said she, "if the Signore 
will so far trouble himself." And she turned towards 
the hill. Half-reluctantly I followed her. 

" Sissignore," said she, *'in the house of my father 
there is a Madonna — if the Signore will care to visit 
her?" 

The child stirred in her arms and I made as though 
to play with it as we went, but it turned away its head, 
hiding it in its mother's arm. 

" He is shy, Signore. Excuse him then — Beppino, 
Beppino, be not so shamefaced." 

So we went on together, till not far away we came 
to a house very bare and poor. Before the door 
stood, nevertheless, one of the most lovely of those 
girls who are the happiness of Tuscany. She was tall 
and well built, and her eyes, which glanced swiftly at 
me under her hair, and that was almost gold, fell 
suddenly as we approached. 

" Is the father within, Annunziatina ? " asked my 
guide. 

" But, yes — enter then." 

"This Signore would see the Madonna." 

When I turned away after looking at that beautiful 
trecento picture where Madonna was enthroned with 
her Son in her arms, and four angels stood on guard, 



2 68 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

I found a little group standing in a half-circle, waiting 
patiently for my opinion. At one end stood the 
mother, an oldish woman, her eyes fixed on my face, 
next to her was her son, a man of some thirty years, 
beside him stood his father, an old fellow some seventy 
years old, and beside him again, Annunziatina herself, 
her eyes on the floor ; between them and myself stood 
my guide, hushing her child to sleep. 

There was silence. Presently the father said, " It 
does not please the Signore?" 

" But, yes," said I, " how should it not please me 
since it is so beautiful," and I looked at Annunziatina 
where she stood like a frightened fawn, absolutely 
motionless. Presently she took a deep breath. 

Again there was silence. What is it then I asked 
myself, I do not understand. Why should they care 
what I think of the picture ? 

" Yes," I said, turning to the old man, " it is very 
beautiful. Fortunate indeed are they who have so 
much treasure in the house." 

" Does the Signore wish to be thus fortunate ? " 

" I ? I do not understand." 

"Will the Signore buy this treasure? " 

How stupid I am, I thought ; why, of course, the old 
rogue was simply leading me on. But there were 
tears in his eyes. Annunziatina still stood like a 
statue, absolutely motionless, her eyes on the ground. 

" Che, Che,'' said L " I cannot buy your gods." 

" Signore, it is all we have." 

A long silence followed. For a time I stood look- 
ing at them, then I turned away. " I also am poor," 
said I. " What do you ask for it ? " 

The old man made a step towards me. " Signore," 
said he eagerly, '*it is like this. Listen to me, Sig- 
nore. When I said it was all we have I spoke the 
truth. It is our treasure ; moreover, it is the dote of 



ANNUNZIATINA 269 

Annunziatina here. Signore, unless we sell it, we 
cannot marry her, and ... we would marry her 
quickly while we live." 

The girl stood looking on the floor, quite motion- 
less, only her cheeks were stained, and by the quick- 
ness of her breathing one might know the tumult in 
her heart. 

Again there was silence. Presently the old man 
said almost despairingly, " Will the Signore not buy it 
then? Alas, that it should be so beautiful and yet 
without value," and he looked fiercely at it. 

"I will buy it," I said, " if Annunziatina wishes it." 

She looked up swiftly. " I, Signore, I ... Oh no, 
I do not wish it at all. It has been there ever since 
I can remember," and she rushed from the room 
weeping. 

" Alas, these women ! " said the old man. " Listen, 
Signore, she would give her eyes for Ulisse, but he . . . 
how can he take her without a soldo" 

" Well," said I, driven against a wall, " well, what 
do you ask then ? " 

" What you will." 

I gave him what I had then and the next day more 
again when I sent to fetch the picture. . . . 

Who knows what Annunziatina will think of it in 
that little house of hers when she awakes there for the 
first time and finds it beside her bed. 

From San Bastiano to S. Lorenzo a Basciano is a 
walk of a mile or more. You follow the road down- 
wards, then when you come to a country road that 
crosses it at the foot of the hill you turn up by a by- 
path through the olives and vines on the right, that leads 
you presently, winding under the little village there, 
just a group of houses, to the church itself. Very 
small and very ancient, it holds still a picture in the 
manner of Ghirlandajo, painted in 1480 for Francesco 



2 70 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

di Bartolommeo Martellini. It is a picture of Madonna 
enthroned you find there with our Lord in her arms 
and round her stand many saints, S. Caterina of Alex- 
andria, S. Giuliano, S. Bartolommeo, S. Francesco of 
Assisi, S. Sebastiano and S. Lorenzo. 

The road from S. Lorenzo a Basciano runs down- 
hill all the way into the valley towards Fiesole. Cross- 
ing the Mugnone by a ford about half a mile below 
the village of Caldine, you come once more to Via 
Faenza, which you follow now homewards through the 
beautiful gola till under the hill of Fiesole, just as the 
highway is about to be crossed for the first time by the 
railway, you leave it, climbing by a road to the left up 
to the Oratorio del Crocifisso di Fontelucente, which, 
built at the end of the seventeenth century to take the 
place of an older shrine, still keeps its crucifix of stone. 
In the chapel on the left is a very lovely picture of the 
end of the trecento, representing the Assumption of the 
Blessed Virgin who gives her girdle to S. Thomas. It 
comes from the old destroyed church of S. Giovanni 
Decollato.^ 

From this beautiful place you may turn to the left, 
climbing thus up under the old Etruscan walls to the 
Piazza beside the Duomo of Fiesole, whence the tram 
will take you to Florence ; or, continuing on your way 
by a road less difficult, come to S. Domenico in some- 
thing over a mile : and so to Florence in the plain. 

1 Cf. A. Guerri, Fiesole e il suo Comune (Firenze, 1897), p. 71. 




^1^ 



FONTE LUCENTE 



XVII 

THREE VILLAS AND A ROMANCE OF THE 
PEERAGE OF ENGLAND 

THE two great Medici villas at Castello, Villa di 
Castello and Villa della Petraja, stand among 
the woods on the last slopes of Quarto and Quinto, 
the fourth and fifth milestones on the Strada di Prato, 
so lately renamed Via Vittorio Emanuele. You leave 
Florence, by tramway, as for Rifredi at the Porta al 
Prato, and in about half an hour come to the little 
town of Castello scattered along the way. Turning 
thence, out of the highway to the right, in a few 
minutes you find yourself facing the long, low villa of 
Castello. The name of the villa, di Castello, according 
to Repetti, is derived from the Latin castelhmi, meaning 
a cistern of water. " Macrinus, Albinus, Gneus Pom- 
peius, and Marcius," says Villani,^ "came from Rome 
to the city (Florentia) which Caesar was building . . . 
Macrinus caused the water to be brought in conduits 
and aqueducts from a distance of seven miles from the 
city, so that the people might have abundance of 
good water to drink and might keep the place clean ; 
and this conduit was carried from the river called 

1 Vniani, Cronica, lib. i., cap, 38, 
271 



272 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Marina at the foot of Monte Morello, gathering to 
itself all the springs above Sesto and Quinto and 
Colonnata." And Domenico Manni, in his Le Terme 
Florentine, speaks of the ruins of the aqueducts re- 
maining near Castello and other places in the middle 
of the eighteenth century. 

Built, as Vasari tells us, by Pier Francesco de' 
Medici, the son of Cosimo the Elder's brother Lo- 
renzo, he was a patron of Botticelli, who painted for 
him both the Birth of Venus and the Primavera, which 
hung here at Castello till they were placed in the 
galleries. 

The great beauty of Castello to-day, however, is the 
garden i which lies behind the villa. There between 
the woods some sixteenth century architect has laid 
out what is really a formal garden, yet it is so scat- 
tered with flowers and shaded by trees, so lovely with 
lawns and glowing with oleanders, that it seems less 
precise than indeed it is. Then suddenly at a turn- 
ing of the way between the beeches you come upon a 
great terrace at the top of a flight of low wide steps 
where a fountain, silent now, used to play perhaps for 
Cosimo the Grand Duke, which Caterina Sforza cer- 
tainly has seen and heard. All about it are set strange 
statues of the " ladies and gentlemen of the Medici 
family " masquerading as Romans, it might seem, in 
the toga and the dresses of old Rome. 

The fountain itself — half bronze, half marble — may 
well be a work of Giovanni Bologna, though Vasari 
gives it to Tribolo. Above, Ammanati it seems has 
set on a high pedestal Hercules wrestling with An- 
taeus, and below on the edge of the great basin and 
at the foot of the great pedestal are putti lying at full 
length and playing with the water, or seated laugh- 
ing together watching it rise up like a silver lily and 
fall hke a shower of snow. 



VILLA DI CASTELLO 273 

And then there are strange corners, grottoes and 
recesses here filled with fantastic animals, a uni- 
corn, a camel with a monkey on its back, a wild boar 
or lion, a ram, a bear, a stag, dogs and such, to- 
gether with a multitude of smaller creatures; while 
under the roof are set grinning masks and baskets of 
flowers, and patterns of sea-shells. You are bewil- 
dered by all this fantastic menagerie till you remember 
that here the children of the Grand Dukes often 
spent the summer — those long, hot, brilliant days 
when the world is full of silence and there is nothing 
to do but to wait for the evening and the coolness 
after the sunset. Well, it was perhaps to amuse those 
who are neyer at rest that these grottoes were 
fashioned into a great Noah's ark. 

And then for the young men and maidens there 
was the labyrinth. No one cares for such things 
now, yet even in England once they were full of 
mystery and surprises, the fantastic puzzles of a world 
which refused even kisses unless they were by stealth. 
How often in those facile and disastrous days of 
Cosimo I. must those who had come with him so 
easily into a kingdom have passed here the cool of 
the day, the garden echoing with their beautiful 
names, Maddalena, Giovanna, Annunziata, Maria, 
Esmerelda, Ippolyta, Bianca, Francesca. And close 
by, as though at the mercy of their joy, lay Tribolo's 
fantastic, hideous, helpless bronze of the Apennine. 

Perhaps, however, the most memorable personage, 
certainly the strongest personality of her time, who 
has wandered through these gardens, is Caterina 
Sforza, widow of Girolamo Riario, widow of Giovanni 
de' Medici, the mother of Giovanni delle Bande Nere 
and grandmother of Cosimo I. An illegitimate daughter 
of the Galeazzo Sforza of Milan, at eleven years of age 
she had been betrothed to Girolamo Riario and after the 



2 74 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

murder of her father she married hhn. " As she issued 
from her litter," says Fabio Oliva, " it seemed as though 
the sun had come out, so rarely beautiful did she seem, 
laden with silver and gold and jewels, but still more 
striking from her natural loveliness. Her hair, wreathed 
in the manner of a coronet, was brighter than the gold 
with which it was entwined. Her forehead of burnished 
ivory almost reflected the beholder. Her eyes sparkled 
behind the mantling crimson of her cheeks as morning 
stars amid those many-tinted lilies which returning dawn 
scatters along the horizon." ^ In 1488, when Girolamo 
was murdered, he whom she so heroically avenged, her 
son Ottaviano was proclaimed by her Count of Forli. 
Then she married Giacomo Fea, that comrade who 
had held for her and with her help the Citadel of Forli 
against the murderers of Count Girolamo. Giacomo 
Fea, however, in 1496 was murdered by the same gang 
of ruffians, and she punished them, too, as she had 
punished their predecessors. Then Giovanni de' Medici, 
the son of Pier Francesco by Laudamia Acciajuoli, envoy 
of Florence at her court, married her, and, dying soon 
after, left her with a son still a baby. Cesare Borgia, 
however, had set his heart on Forli, and even from 
Caterina Sforza would take no denial ; yet she forced 
him to win it by treachery. He made her his prisoner 
and sent her to Rome. She was presently allowed to 
retire to Florence, where she devoted herself to the 
education of her little son, not without fear, it seems, 
of his assassination, for she sent him away to a 
nunnery, where "dressed as a girl and jealously 
guarded by the faithful," the future soldier, Gio- 
vanni delle Bande Nere — the last of the great con- 
dottieri — passed eight months. Later, he returned 
to his mother at Castello. " So you have your boy 

^ Cf. Janet Ross, Florentine Villas {Dent, 1902), p. 67. 



VILLA DI CASTELLO 275 

back," writes an old follower of her husband whom 
she had commissioned to procure " a small and hand- 
some horse " for Giovanni, then just seven years old. 
" If my father had come to life again I could not be 
more glad ; and so it is with all the condottieri here in 
camp. The day your letter arrived the commissary 
was so overjoyed that he could not eat. As to the 
horse, we will search among the condottieri here, and 
whosoever has one will be only too proud to give it. 
We shall, without fail, find what you want." ^ 

In 1527 Castello suffered much from the armies of 
the League and the Bourbons, and after the siege fell 
into the hands of Cosimo I., whose mother, Maria 
Salviati, died here. It is to Cosimo almost all the 
decorations, the gardens and the statues we see are 
owing. For him Tribolo carved and Pontormo painted, 
and here he spent his time with Camilla Martelli, the 
wife he had secretly married for fear of public opinion. 

It is a beautiful walk of half a mile through the ilex 
woods from Villa di Castello to Villa della Petraja. 
On the way you pass the little church of S. Michele 
with a delicate bell tower. 

The Villa della Petraja, so close to Villa di Castello 
and yet so different from it, towers above the plain of 
which it affords many a fine view, while from the 
windows you may see, not far away, the towers and 
domes of Florence. 

Petraja is much older than Villa di Castello. So 
early as 13 14 the Brunelleschi ^ who owned it held it 
against Sir John Hawkwood and the Pisans. This 
was during the successful raid on the Florentine con- 
tado of the White Company with all Pisa behind it. 

^ See Pasolini, Caterina Sforza (Firenze, 1893), vol. ii., p. 
321, and Janet Ross, op. cit., p. 68. 

2 The great architect and sculptor did not belong to this 
family. 



2 76 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

"The Germans," writes Scipio Ammirato/ "the Pisan 
despoilers and the English, encamped at Sesto and 
Colonnata on their way back from the Mugello,^ and 
spreading over the slopes of Monte Morello took S. 
Stefano in Pane. Here they remained some days 
devastating the villas which they burned down over a 
radius of three miles. The son of Boccaccio Brunel- 
leschi, a most valorous youth, then secured Petraja. 
. . . The villa being therefore well defended by the 
young Brunelleschi, who showed no sign of surrender- 
ing, the enemy determined to take it by force, with the 
intention of cutting the defenders to pieces and razing 
the building to the ground. The English first under- 
took the work and advanced in fine order with the 
greatest ferocity, carrying ladders and catapults as 
though they had to storm the walls of Florence itself. 
But all was in vain. Some were killed, many others 
were burned and wounded. The Germans then deter- 
mined to try their luck, and made a second assault as 
furious as any castle ever underwent. Neither more 
nor less happened to them, than what had befallen 
the English. So they determined with combined force 
to assault the villa a third time, and to their shame and 
the everlasting glory of the Brunelleschi they were 
once more repulsed." 

Ammirato seems persuaded that the great four- 
sided tower we see to-day, rebuilt certainly by Cardinal 
Ferdinando de' Medici, is the same that was so well 
defended in 1364, but it does not seem to be so, and 
indeed Repetti ^ denies it. Piero de' Brunelleschi left 
the place to the Servite Fathers, who took possession 

1 Ammirato, Storia di Firenze (Firenze), p. 638 ; cf. also 
Janet Ross, op. cit., p. 54. 

2 For an account of this campaign, see my Florence and 
Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), pp. 98-gg. 

3 Repetti, op. cit., vol. iv., p. 139. 



PETRAJA 277 

of it in 1372; but by the beginning of the fifteenth 
century, the Strozzi owned Petraja, losing it in the 
time of Cosimo de' Medici.^ From Cosimo Pater 
Patriae to Cosimo I. we hear little of Petraja. " Cosimo 
I.," says Mrs. Ross, " lived much at Petraja, and wish- 
ing to have Varchi near him to enjoy his sweet converse, 
lent him La Topaja, a small villa on the hillside above 
Petraja. Poets, artists and strangers of note who came 
to Florence, toiled up the steep road to visit the great 
historian, and Varchi must often have entertained there 
the celebrated courtesan, Tullia d'Aragona, whose por- 
trait at Brescia by Bonvicino fully justifies the passionate 
verses addressed to her by so many poets of that time." 

Occhi belli, 
Occhi leggiadri, occhi amorosi e cari, 
Piu che le stelle belle e piu che il sole, 

writes Muzio, while Ercole Bentivoglio indited sonnets 
to her celestial brow. Tasso called her "Za mi'a 
Signora," and Alessandro Arrighi praised her nice 
conversation, her most rare beauty, and her singing 
which could turn a marble statue into flesh and blood. 
Born in Rome, the daughter of Cardinal Luigi d'Ara- 
gona, and educated in Siena and Florence, she aspired 
to be a second Sappho. " Varchi," Mrs. Ross tells us, 
"in spite of the silvered hair he talks so much of, 
evidently succumbed to the charms of the beautiful 
woman, and even when love had cooled into a platonic 
friendship he continued to polish and sometimes to 
re-write, in his elegant scholarly language, the sonnets 
and verses of the lovely Tullia. Her reputation as a 

^ Whether Palla Strozzi lost it when his estates were con- 
fiscated after the return of Cosimo, or whether, as seems likely, 
it remained to the family till the rebellion of Filippo Strozzi 
cost them everything, is uncertain. C/. Repetti, 0^. cit., vol, 
iv.,p. 149. 



2 78 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

poetess induced Cosimo to excuse her from wearing 
the yellow veil, odious sign of her profession. The 
sonnet sent with her petition, which is still in the state 
archives of Florence, bears Far sell gratia per poetessa 
in his handwriting on the margin. In her old age 
she became devout and was a protegee of the pious 
Duchess Eleanora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo. Tullia's 
poem, ' Guercino il Meschino,' . . . was written about 
this time." In the preface she rates Boccaccio 
roundly for " the improper, indecent and truly abomin- 
able things" in his book, and wonders how people 
calling themselves Christians can have his name men- 
tioned without making the sign of the Cross. " Yet," 
she continues, " so corrupt is our nature that the book 
is not avoided as an abomination, but run after by all." 
Truly, if that is conversion, we know it. 

The great days of Petraja came with Cardinal 
Ferdinando de' Medici, whose favourite residence it 
was. It was for him that Buontalenti enlarged the 
villa and set out' the garden. Later as Grand Duke, 
married to Cristina of Lorraine, he seems to have 
spent all his time here, all the time he could spare 
from Florence. There, too, Scipione Ammirato, " the 
modern Livy," wrote the famous Storia di Firenze. 

The gardens are beautiful with their roses and car- 
nations, their ilexes and cypresses, their terraces and 
fountains. The great fountain on the east, Tribolo's 
masterpiece, Grand Duke Pietro Leopold brought here 
from Castello. "There he carved," says Vasari, "on 
the marble base a mass of sea- monsters . . . with 
tails so curiously twisted that nothing better can be 
done in that style : having finished it, he took a 
marble basin brought to Castello long before . . . 
and in the throat near the edge of the said basin he 
made a circle of dancing boys holding certain festoons 
of marine creatures carved with excellent imagination 



VILLA CORSINI 279 

out of the marble; also the stem to go above the 
said basin he executed with much grace, with boys 
and masks for spouting out water, of great beauty, 
and on the top of this stem he placed a huge female 
figure, to represent Florence, ... of which figure he 
had made a most beautiful model, where one might 
see her wringing the water out of her hair with her 
hands." This statue, however, seems in spite of 
Vasari, to be the work of Giovanni da Bologna. 

Precise and beautiful as both these great Medici 
houses are, they have not for me, at least, the interest 
that Villa Corsini has, that palace which lies below 
Petraja on the way back to the Strada di Prato. It is 
a far cry from Kenilworth to Florence, yet time has 
compassed it. First in the possession of the Strozzi, 
who, it seems, in the middle of the fifteenth century 
sold it to the Rinieri, about a century later Villa 
Corsini came into the hands of Francesco Sangalleti, 
whose possessions were confiscated by Cosimo I. and 
sold to Pagolo Donati in 1597. After further changes 
and vicissitudes it came again into Medici hands, 
Cosimo, the son of Grand Duke Ferdinando I., getting 
possession of it. 

Its interest for us, however, does not lie in these 
its possessors and certainly not in itself, for it is 
merely a rather fine baroque building about a great 
courtyard ; the gardens redeeming it from a sort of 
vulgarity that is yet, however strange that may seem, 
not without a certain charm. No, we should pass by 
villa and gardens too, though with a word of praise 
perhaps, for Petraja and Castello are so near ; but 
since Villa Corsini has harboured an English noble- 
man, of great descent, of great worth, too, as I think, 
and an exile, it deserves from us more than a passing 
glance. For indeed it was the unfortunate Robert 
Dudley, Earl of Warwick, as he said, and Duke of 



2 8o COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Northumberland by grace of the emperor, who lived 
here for many years, dying here at last by Arno, far 
from the fresh woods of Warwickshire, in the year of 
the king's murder, 1649.^ 

Sir Robert Dudley, born in 1572, was the son of the 
Earl of Leicester by his second wife, born a Howard, 
the widow of Lord Sheffield. The marriage, however, 
for many reasons, chiefly political, had been solemnised 
in secret, and Leicester, fearing possibly to lose his 
influence with Queen Elizabeth, never acknowledged 
it. Indeed before long he was living clandestinely 
with Lettice, widow of the Earl of Essex. For the 
first five years of his life Dudley remained in his 
mother's keeping, but about 1578 she seems to have 
married Sir Howard Stafford of Grafton, finding in 
him a protector, and her son was immediately taken 
into the home of his father, who soon publicly married 
Lady Essex. The Earl of Leicester died in 1858, 
leaving a considerable property — Leicester House in 
the Strand, later Essex House, for instance — to " my 
base son Robert," while Kenil worth was left to his 
brother the Earl of Warwick and a huge property to 
his wife Lettice. 

A year later the Earl of Warwick died and Robert 
Dudley succeeded to Kenilworth, and not believing 
himself base-born, claimed and used the title of Earl 

^ Very little has been written concerning this extraordinary 
man. In 1649 the Rev. Dr. Vaughan Thomas, Vicar of Stone- 
leigh in Warwickshire, printed The Italian Biography of Robert 
Dudley, but he did not pubHsh it, and it is full of mistakes and 
omissions. It was not till eleven years ago when the late Mr, 
Temple Leader published his Life of Robert Dudley, Duke of 
Northumberland (Firenze, Barbera), that any serious attempt 
was made to tell the adventurous story of this great Englishman, 
Even this excellent and indispensable book is far from com- 
plete, and, being published in Florence, did not receive the 
attention it deserved. 




VILLA CORSINI 



A ROMANCE 281 

of Warwick, by which in Italy he was known all his life. 
Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was 
entered as Comitis Filius in the year of his father's 
death, three years later he was betrothed to Frances 
Vavasour, one of Queen Elizabeth's maids of honour. 
The Queen, however, forbade the marriage on account 
of Dudley's youth, it is said. Whether from this cause 
or from a love of adventure Dudley about this time 
began his career as a sailor. He studied navigation, 
built some ships, and engaging the best pilots he could 
find, set out for El Dorado. He took the Island of 
Trinidad, seems to have discovered Guiana, of which 
he made a map, publishing it later in his book, 
LArcano del Mare^ and after a fight with some Spanish 
galleons, returned to England not without booty. He 
then seems to have served in the Royal Navy, in the 
absence of his uncle, the Earl of Nottingham, taking 
command of the fleet in 1596, while in the following 
year he led the vanguard in the fight at Cadiz ; and 
other adventures he had too, till, when Calais was 
taken by Mendoza, he was put in command of the 
English ships sent to the rescue. He seems to have 
been almost famous. Of the voyage to the Indies, for 
instance, the Rev. Richard Hackluyt asked him for a 
narrative. Perhaps a part of it will not be too much 
out of place here. 

'* I weighed ancker from Southampton road the 6th 
of November, 1594. Upon this day my selfe in the 
'Beare,' a ship of 200 tunnes, as Admirall; and cap- 
taine Munck in the * Bear's Whelpe,' Vice- Admirall ; 
with two small pinnesses, called the ' Frisking ' and 
the 'Earwig,' I passed through the Needles and within 
two dayes after bare in with Plimmouth. But I was 
enforced to returne backe. Having parted company 
with my Vice- Admirall, I went alone wandering on my 
voyage, sailing along the coaste of Spaine, within view 



282 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of Cape Finisterre and Cape St. Vincent, the north 
and south capes of Spaine. In which space, having 
many chases, I could meet with none but my countrey- 
men or countrey's friends. Leaving these Spanish 
shores, I directed my course, the 14th December, 
toward the Isles of the Canaries. Here I lingered 
twelve days for two reasons : the one, in hope to 
meete my Vice-Admirall ; the other, to get some vessel 
to remove my pestered men into, who being 140 
almost in a ship of 200 tunnes, there grew many sicke. 
I tooke two very fine caravels under the calmes of 
Tenerif and Palma which both refreshed and amended 
my company, and made me a fleet of three sailes. . . . 
Thus cheared as a desolate traveller, with the company 
of my small and newe erected Fleete I continued my 
purpose for the West Indies. 

" Riding under this White Cape two daies, and walk- 
ing on shore to view the countrey, I found it a waste, 
desolate, barren and sandie place, the sand running in 
drifts like snow and very stoney ; for so is all the 
countrey, sand upon stone (like Arabia Deserta and 
Petrea) and full of blacke venemous lizards, with some 
wild beasts and people which be tawny Moores so 
wilde, as they would but call to my caravels from the 
shore who road very neere it. I now caused my 
master Abraham Kendall to shape his course directly 
for the Isle of Trinidad in the West Indies ; which after 
twenty-two days we descried and the ist Feb. came to 
ancker under a point thereof called Curiapan, in a bay 
which was very full of pelicans, and I called it Pelican 
Bay. About three leagues to the eastward of this 
place we found a mine of Mercazites, which glister 
like golde (but all is not golde that glistereth), for so 
we found the same nothing worth, though the Indians 
did assure us it was Calvori, which signifieth golde with 
them. These Indians are a fine shaped and a gentle 



A ROMANCE 283 

people, all naked and painted red, their commanders 
wearing crowns of feathers. These people did often 
resort unto my ship, and brought us hennes, hogs, 
plantans, pinos, tobacco, and many other pretie com- 
modities which they exchanged with us for hatchets, 
knives, hookes, belles and glasse buttons. The countrey 
is fertile and ful of fruits, strange beasts and foules, 
whereof munkies, babions and parats were in great 
abundance. 

" Right against the northern part of Trinidad, the 
maine was called the high land of Paria, the rest a 
very low land. Morucca I learned to be ful of a 
greene stone called Tacraao, which is good for the 
stone. Caribes I learned to be man-eaters or canibals 
and great enemies to the Islanders of Trinidad. In 
the highland of Paria I was informed by divers of these 
Indians, that there was some Perota, which with them 
is silver and great store of most excellent cane tobacco. 
... I was told of a rich nation that sprinkled their 
bodies with the powder of golde and seemed to be 
guilt and that farre beyond them was a greate toun 
called El Dorado with many other things. . . . And 
after carefully doubling the shoulder of Abreojos I now 
caused the Master (hearing by a pilote that the Spanish 
Fleete ment to put out of Havana) to beare for the 
Meridian of the yle of Bermuda hoping there to find 
the Fleete. The Fleete I found not, but foule weather 
enough to scatter many Fleetes which companies left 
me not, till I came to the yles of Flores and Cuervo ; 
whither I made the more haste hoping to meet some 
great Fleete of Her Majestic my Sovereigne as I had 
intelligence, and to give them advise of this rich Spanish 
Fleete ; but findinge none, and my victuals almost 
spent, I directed my course for England." 

Such was Robert Dudley, Earl of Warwick. Home 
again, he fell in love with and married a sister of 



2 84 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Thomas Cavendish. She died in 1596 without chil- 
dren. Then he married the daughter of Sir Thomas 
Leigh of Stoneleigh in Warwickshire and by her had 
four daughters. His fight for his honour had begun 
certainly in 1596, when he began proceedings to clear 
his mother's reputation and to establish his right to his 
titles and estates. At first he thought to be successful, 
but the great families of Essex and Sydney were too 
strong for him. They got the case transferred to the 
Star Chamber, which ordered "all depositions to be 
sealed up and no copies taken ". Indeed the court only 
admitted the evidence of Lady Essex. This scoundrelly 
business was set right, so far as it could be set right, 
later by Charles I.^ Seeing that he was not like to get 
a hearing from the Star Chamber, much less justice, 
Dudley left England. Not alone, however, for with 
him went his cousin Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of 
Sir Robert Southwell. At Lyons they were received 
into the Catholic Church, and obtaining the Pope's 
dispensation from the laws of consanguinity, were 
married. Poor Lady Alice, it is said, vainly offered 
to join him with her four girls and to become a 
Catholic. 

Later James I., in a Scotch passion, roundly accuses 
the Pope of having ^^ disgiunto da quella Donna che 
Egli meno seco^ et io per me lo terro sempre incapace 
d'ogni honore," in vain of course. The king deceived 
himself ; for all the Pope knew Dudley was unmarried, 
all he did was to give him a dispensation from the law^ 
of the Church regarding consanguinity. 

From Lyons Dudley soon set out with the beautiful 
Elizabeth Southwell for Florence. In a letter written 

1 See the Letter Patent conceding to Alice Lady Dudley 
the title of Duchess in England. — Temple Leader, Life of 
Robert Dudley, Duke of Northumberland (Florence, 1896), p. 
200. Here Dudley's legitimacy is established and declared. 



A ROMANCE 285 

in French and in the third person he offers his services 
to the Grand Duke and asks for his protection. Speak- 
ing of himself, after explaining who he is and recounting 
his misfortunes : — 

" Premierement, sans deroger au merite d'aulcun il 
n'est second a aucun Capitaine de mer, qui soit en 
Angleterre ce jour d'huy son experience admirable au 
faict de la navigation par toutes les regions de I'uni- 
vers, ne peust (si je I'ose dire sans reproche) recevoir 
paragon. En second lieu il s'est estudie particuliere- 
ment a cest art des le temps que I'age I'a rendu capable 
d'y pouvoir vacquer ; les instruments a ce faicts, la plus 
part de son invention et Industrie luy montent en frais 
a la somme di 7000 scudi {ecus). 

" En troisieme lieu il a grande experience et prac- 
tique aux Indes, comme ayant este luy mesme, sur les 
lieux dont il cognoist tous les secrets et particularites 
comme aussy par la communication des avis iornalliers 
de ces quartiers la, dont la feu Reyne, par sa faveur 
et le grand Admiral son oncle luy faisoient part avec 
tous leurs proiects et desseins la dessus. 

" II est admirablement verse a la charpenterie d'une 
navire de guerre, dont I'usage n'est quiere cognu ce 
jourd'huy avec les perfections et secrets, qui la peuvent 
rendre tres absolue. 

" II fera voir a Vostre Altesse par des raisons peremp- 
toires et assurees par quel moyen tres-facile et sans 
grands frais, elle pourra obtenir la dessus et se rendre 
bien tost seigneur absolu sur la mer de Levant, malgre 
toutes les galeres espagnoles, infideles et autres, qui 
voudroient entreprendre contre Vostre Altesse Seren- 
issime. II pretend luy mesme d 'avoir deux ou plus 
de navires pour guerroier les infideles et trafficquer en 
telles marchandises et regions du monde, que I'occasion 
et proffit luy conseillera. ..." 

It was thus as a sailor that Dudley claimed to serve 



286 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the; Grand Duke of Tuscany. Ferdinando II. made 
inquiries of Lotti, his minister in London, who replied 
after speaking of the whole affair and describing Dudley 
as " of exquisite stature, fair beard and noble appear- 
ance," that the real reason King James was angry with 
him was that " His Majesty does not want Catholic 
subjects, especially when they are brave and worthy 
men ". This was enough for Ferdinando, who at once 
took Dudley into his service and established him in 
Leghorn, where he at once began to build the ships he 
had promised. There he launched the San Giovanni^ 
of which he himself says " she was a strong and rare 
sailer, of great repute, and the terror of the Turks in 
these seas ". His plans and designs attracted notice 
too even in England. In March, 1607, Lotti, who 
was not too friendly disposed, wrote to the Grand 
Duke, " H.E. (Sir Thomas Challoner) showed me the 
design of a ship made in Leghorn by the Earl of 
Warwick, and he also showed me another which he 
said was more perfect than any ".^ And a little later 
we hear of King James sending an order for Dudley 
to return, promising him the title of Earl of Warwick.^ 
Dudley, however, made no sign ; he was smarting still 
under the ignominy that had been thrust upon him. 
He remained in Tuscany, and " thanks to him," says 
Mrs. Ross, " Leghorn became a great commercial port. 
He induced the Grand Duke to build fortifications, to 
declare it a free port, and to allow an English factory 
to be set up. The draining of the marshes between 
Leghorn and Pisa was also suggested by him." 

All this time Dudley was living partly at Leghorn 
and partly at the Villa Corsini, which had been placed 
at his disposal by the Grand Duke. He was busy also 
with his books. There he wrote the Arcano del Mare, 

1 Cf. Temple Leader, op. cit,, p. 57. 

2 Ibid., p. 59 and app. xiv. 



A ROMANCE 287 

published in Florence in 1646-47. Other works, too, 
he wrote, some of which seem to be lost while others 
remain in manuscript. One is entitled the Direttorio 
Marittimo ; it is written in very poor Italian. Another 
is called Hoiv to Bridle the Exhorbitances of Pa7'lia- 
fjient, and to it one may perhaps trace many of the 
later unfortunate methods of government in Tuscany. 
Among the counsels he gives the Grand Duke are the 
following : " Imprimis, that none wear arms or wea- 
pons at all either in City or Country, but such as your 
Majesty may think fit to privilege, and they to be en- 
rolled ; 2nd. That as many Highways as conveniently 
may be done, be made passable through those Cities 
and Touns fortified, to constrain the Passengers to 
travel through them ; 3rd. That the soldiers of For- 
tresses be sometimes chosen of another Nation, if 
subject to the same Prince ; but howsoever, not to be 
born in the same Province or within forty miles or 
fifty of the Fortress and not to have Friends or 
Correspondency near it ; 4th. That all the Gates of 
each walled Toun be appointed officers, not to suffer 
any unknown Passenger to pass without a Ticket, 
showing from whence he came and whither he go. 
And that the Gates of each City be shut all Night and 
keys kept by the Mayor or Governor ; 5 th. Also Inn- 
keepers to deliver the names of all unknown Passen- 
gers that lodge in their Houses ; and if they stay 
suspiciously at any time to present them to the 
Governor." He also suggests the building of a fort 
in each city so that it shall be commanded. 

So he lived in Florence really very happily with 
Elizabeth Southwell, " the handsome Mrs. Sudel, whom 
he carried away with him out of England, and is here 
taken for his wife," as Lord Herbert of Cherbury says, 
when he found him there. He had a palace, too, in 
the city, just opposite the Palazzo Strozzi. And the 



2 88 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Grand Duke loved him and called him friend and 
Earl of Warwick. He seems to have lost nothing by 
his exile, save those lands which it would possibly 
have cost him his head to claim. So he lived, till one 
day in 1620 the Emperor Ferdinand 11. to please his 
sister, the Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena, whose 
Grand Chamberlain Dudley was (and he was the 
Grand Chamberlain of three Grand Duchesses), created 
him Duke of Northumberland. Many and great as 
have been the insolences of the emperors, this might 
seem to beggar them. What shadow of jurisdiction 
had the Emperor ever dared to claim in England? It 
is part of our glory that we never came under the 
shadow of that ghostly empire. When in 14 16 the 
Emperor Sigismund came to England to see what he 
might get out of Harry V., young Humphrey Duke of 
Gloucester, champion of England, in performance of 
the ancient ceremony rode into the sea with his sword 
drawn, before the Emperor had disembarked, and de- 
manded " whether he came merely on a friendly visit 
or in his imperial capacity to claim suzerainty over the 
country; and it was not till a denial of all imperial 
rights over King Henry had been given that the 
visitor was allowed to land ".^ When we remember 
the never-ceasing quarrels that the emperors lighted 
or fanned in Italy, when we think of those unspeak- 
able barbarians the selected representatives of a 
people that even yet are not worthy of freedom, it is 
with a real joy and thankfulness we may remember 
what in this matter our Fathers did. And truly when 
in the seventeenth century we find that shadow of a 
shadow, the ghost of a ghost, claiming a power which 
even the greatest of his predecessors never had, it is 

^ Cf. Vickers, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (Constable, 
1907). P- 37- 



A ROMANCE 289 

enough that we should be amused at his insolence, 
and a little scornful of the Englishman, who, whatever 
his wrongs, could stoop to accept from the hands of 
this foreigner the stolen shadow of a coronet. Hence- 
forth he might masquerade as Duke of Northumber- 
land, in such a place as Tuscany, but he would never 
dare to bear that title in England, nor, had he been 
pardoned, could he have stood in the peerage of 
England without shame. He was the vassal of the 
Emperor. 

Dudley died at Villa Corsini in 1649. He was 
buried in the Convento di Boldrone at Quarto close 
by. Nothing to-day remains to mark his resting-place. 

Of his twelve children, Mrs. Ross tells us, "the 
eldest, Maria, married the Prince of Piombino ; Maria 
Maddalena became the wife of Malaspina Marchese 
d'Olinola, High Steward to Queen Christina of Sweden ; 
and Teresa married the Duca della Cornia. Robert, 
the eldest son, died a few days before he attained his 
majority, and his mother was so affected by his loss 
that she followed him to the grave within a few weeks, 
to the intense grief of her husband. The second son, 
Charles, was an unmannerly scapegrace who gave his 
father infinite trouble. He married a French woman, 
Marie Madeleine, daughter of Charles Antoine Gouffier, 
Marquis de Braseux and Seigneur de Crevecour." 

It was however to Lady Alice, Dudley's lawful wife 
in England, that justice was done, such justice as 
was possible by the White King himself. So in the 
" Letters Patent," from which I have already quoted, 
we read : ". . . And whereas our dear Father (James 
L) not knowing the truth of the lawful birth of the 
said Sir Robert (as we piously believe) granted away 
the titles of the said Earldoms to others which we now 
hold not fit to call in question, nor ravel into our 
deceased father's actions ; especially they having beer) 

19 



290 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

so long enjoyed by those families, to whom the honours 
were granted (which we do not mean to alter). And 
yet, we having a very deep sense of the great injuries 
done to the said Sir Robert Dudley, and the Lady 
Alice Dudley and their children ; and that we are of 
opinion that in justice and equity these possessions so 
taken from them do rightly belong unto them or full 
satisfaction for the same; and holding ourselves in 
honour and conscience obliged to make them reparation 
now as far as our present ability will enable us ; and 
also taking into our consideration the said great estate, 
which the said Lady Alice Dudley had in Kenil worth, 
and sold at our desire to us at a very great under- 
value^ and yet not performed or satisfied, to many 
thousand pounds damage. 

"And we also casting our princely eye upon the 
services done unto us by Sir Richard Leveson knight 
of the Bath who hath married the Lady Catherine, 
one of the daughters of the said Duke, by his said 
wife the said Lady Alice Dudley ; and also the great 
services which Robert Holburne Esq. hath done to 
us by his learned pen and otherwise (which said Robert 
Holburne hath married the Lady Anne one other of 
the daughters of the said Duke by his said wife the 
Lady Alice Dudley). 

"We have conceived ourselves bound in honour 
and conscience to give the said Lady Alice and her 
children such honour and precedence, as is, or are, 
due to them in marriage or blood. And therefore we 
do not only give and grant unto the said Lady Alice 
Dudley, the title of Duchess Dudley for her life, in 
England and other our realms and dominions with 

1 It was sold to Henry Prince of Wales for ;^i4,5oo, truly a 
great undervalue. Even of this only ;£"3,ooo was ever paid, " if 
any at all," as the king says. Cf. Temple Leader, op. cit., 
app. ii. 



A ROMANCE 291 

such precedencies as she might have had if she had 
Uved in the dominion of the Sacred Empire (as a mark 
of favour unto her and out of our Prerogative Royal 
which we will not have drawn into dispute) ; but we 
do also further grant unto the said Lady Katherine 
and Lady Anne, her daughters the places, titles and 
precedencies of the said Duke's daughters, as from 
that time of their said father's creation, during their 
respective lives, not only in England, but in all other 
our kingdoms and dominions, as a testimony of our 
princely favour and grace unto them, conceiving our- 
selves obliged to do much more for them if it were in 
our power, in these unhappy times of distraction. 

" And we require all persons of honour, and other 
our loving subjects, especially our Earl Marshall, 
Heralds and Officers at Arms, to take notice of this 
our friendly pleasure and to govern themselves accord- 
ingly. . . . 

"To witness whereof we have caused these our 
Letters to be made Patent. 

" Written Ourself at Oxford, the three and twentieth 
day of May in the twentieth year of our reign. 

"Charles R." 



XVIII 

SIECI, TORRE A DECIMO, DOCCIA, S. BRI- 
GIDA, OPACO, THE MADONNA DEL 
SASSO, AND TREBBIO 

THERE is no lovelier road in the country about 
Florence than that which, leaving Val d'Arno at 
Sieci, climbs slowly at first through the narrow valley 
to the village of Mulino del Piano, and turning there 
to the right mounts precipitately toward Doccia, and 
winding across the bare austere valleys in the hills 
leads you at last to S. Brigida under the famous sanc- 
tuary of Madonna del Sasso. Thence your way lies 
as you will, north or south. To the north lies Monte 
Senario and the valley of the Mugnone, and a good 
road high up on the western side of Montereggi 
brings you through Saletta to Fiesole and the tram- 
way. Turning southward from S. Brigida you pass by 
a way certainly not less beautiful through Castel Treb- 
bio and Serravalle, coming again into the valley of the 
Sieci at Mulino del Piano and winning Val d'Arno 
at Sieci. It is a long journey, and beautiful as the 
world is among those lonely untrodden hills, different 
as it seems to me from any other landscape about 
Florence, more severe and solemn perhaps and yet 
with something original about it, for any but a good 
walker it is too far to seek it out. It is true you may 
go so far as Sieci on the line to Arezzo by train, and 
29^ 



SIECI 293 

that will save the most tedious part of the journey, but 
unless you be very sure of your feet it is best to go by 
carriage, the lightest that may be, with a good horse too, 
for the hills are many and steep : even then the most 
enthusiastic walker may have his fill, for no horse or 
pair of horses neither, can pull you over those hills. 
Yet for all the difficulty of the way, I for one would 
not miss it for the world. For there be treasures, look 
you, on those barren hills, pictures and carved wonders, 
and sanctuaries in the woods and hermitages in the 
mountains, and these are not the least holy or the 
least beautiful places in the world. So by road or by 
rail, by carriage or afoot, somehow or other you will 
take the road, maybe, that leads to Sieci and to the hills 
above the valley. 

Sieci itself is a little moon-shaped place standing really 
out of the Arno, where it curves beautifully about an 
old weir that fills her streets with its music. Just 
there, you turn out of Via Aretina between the houses 
sharp to the north, the clearer music of another stream 
in your ears, the Sieci, which you are to follow to its 
source under Madonna del Sasso. And truly in all 
Tuscany there is no road more lovely than this by-way 
into the mountains. You follow it first for more than 
two miles, mounting gently all the way, beside the clear 
delicious brook of Sieci, almost an English stream in 
its clearness, its free impetuous song, its never-ended 
melody. For while most of the torrents of Tuscany 
are but dry beds full of stones in the long summer 
under that fierce and golden sun, this stream at least 
sings all the summer through, dashing over the boulders 
and among the rocks, clear as the sky itself, winding 
down its beautiful way between high banks, grass-grown 
and scattered with flowers, through woods, through 
meadows, to lose itself at last, a mild virgin all of silver 
in Arno's furious gold. Ever as you pass upward, 



2 94 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

slowly and gently as though reluctant to win to the 
asperity of the bare hills, you hear her childish innocent 
song, the pure song of a real mountain stream that has 
looked only on the sun, the sky, the stars and the 
flowers tossing in the wind and the trees that have 
answered her melody. You come to an old mill with 
a high wooden bridge half ruined that still staggers 
across the rocks among which she sings : and then 
suddenly, in a little plain, like a cup almost, really 
under the hill, at last you find yourself in the village 
of Mulino del Piano, where the road divides at the 
foot of Monte di Croci. 

Mulino del Piano, or properly Mulino del Piovano, 
is the little village which has sprung up about the Pieve 
of S. Martino a Sieci, a church which has stood here 
certainly since the thirteenth century. No doubt the 
first settlement was made here under the protection of 
Torre a Decimo, the great palace, half fortress, half 
villa, which rises out of the midst of a round wood 
above the village ; and then later, as life became more 
secure, the people began to live at Sieci, at the end of 
the valley, where the stream joins Arno, and there is, 
as we have seen, a great weir and a good fishery. 
Nothing remains to-day of any value in S. Martino 
which not long since has suffered a restoration ; but 
the remains of Torre a Decimo where of old the Sal- 
terelli lords of all this country dwelt, are not without 
interest. Yet indeed it is rather the aspect of these 
places which in truth have lost everything but their 
beauty that appeals to us than their fragmentary and 
obscure story. 

Perhaps the most famous of the Salterelli were the 
two Simone ; one Simone di Guido, a Dominican, 
Prior of S. Maria Novella, and in 13 17 Bishop of 
Parma, in 1323 Archbishop of Pisa, where he died, 
eighty years old, in 1342. Another Simone, a nephew 



DOCCIA 295 

of the first and a Dominican too, was a good theo- 
logian and " maestro del sacro palazzo ".^ He ob- 
tained the mitre in 1385 and died in 1408, Bishop of 
Trieste. He was the last of the family, whose posses- 
sions passed to the Pazzi and the Salviati. Among 
these possessions was Torre a Decimo and the Oratory 
of S, Simone there, which since 1835, when Girolamo 
di Francesco de' Pazzi re-dedicated it, has been called 
S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi.^ Rebuilt in great part 
by the Pazzi not long after they came into possession 
of it, the oratory we see to-day has suffered many a 
restoration, yet it is interesting still even in its archi- 
tecture. Within, the roof a cavalletti is painted, and in 
1905 were discovered, on the south wall of the nave, 
two fifteenth century frescoes representing the martyr- 
dom of S. Sebastian and of another saint — it may well 
be S. Simone. 

The road, as I have said, divides at Mulino del 
Piano, and we leave the Sieci, to find it again later at 
S. Brigida, following the way to the right, beside an- 
other brook, the torrent of Rimaggio. After passing 
between the vineyards for about half a mile, the road 
suddenly turns to the right and begins to climb in 
earnest, and, indeed, it is uphill all the way to Doccia, 
that village beside the road almost, as it seems, at the 
top of the hill. Doccia is really only a scattered 
handful of houses about the very ancient church of 
S. Andrea. This church was once in the patronage of 
the Bishops of Florence, until in 1018 Bishop Ilde- 
brando gave it to the monks of S. Miniato al Monte 
with other places. This gift was not only confirmed in 
1024 by the Emperor Henry VL, but the successors 

^See Ullluitratore Fiorentino, vol. v. (Firenze, 1908), pp. 
63-67. 

2 For a sketch of the life of this saint, see my Florence and 
Northern Tuscany (Methuen, 1907), p. 257. 



296 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of Bishop Ildebrando gave the government of the place 
also to the monks, as appears in a Bull of Pope Lucius 
IIL in 1 184. The feudal system in Italy was in these 
country places at any rate very strongly rooted. Even 
in 1293 we find the men of Doccia, in spite of the 
renunciations of the See of Florence, protesting their 
vassalage and swearing fealty to Bishop Andrea, repre- 
sented by his sindaco. Our interest in the church 
to-day, however, is set in the charming blue and white 
terra-cotta tabernacle which it still keeps, set in the 
northern pillars of the chancel arch, a work of the 
school of the della Robbia, where two angels bow 
before the tiny door of the temporary abode of Jesus ; 
and in the beautiful altar-piece in the Oratory to the 
north of the church where the Compagnia di S. 
Giovanni still gather to pray. There still over the 
altar this picture, painted, perhaps, by some pupil 
of Ghirlandajo, makes a sunshine in a shady place. 
On a great throne, somewhere in the world, S. Anna 
sits like some marvellous sibyl, and on her knees is 
Mary Madonna, Virgo Virginum, and in her arms is 
the Prince of Peace. On either side stand the two 
Saints John, S. Giovanni Battista and S. Giovanni 
Evangelista. The picture is dated 1503. 

Leaving Doccia, you return a little on the way you 
have come, till just before a group of houses a road 
turns sharply off to the right : you follow it, and though 
at first it is easy, you will not go a mile along that way 
before it becomes both difficult and steep. And this 
is the way of mountains — that they try to break your 
heart before they give you of their best. You wind 
down into some beautiful absolutely still and silent 
valley, only to climb out of it ; you wind about through 
the olive gardens ; you follow through the vineyards, 
and it is at last only after climbing what seems to be 



S. BRIGIDA 297 

a precipice that you win to Parga, and a little . later, 
by a way less difficult, to Fornello. Now, God forbid 
that I, of all men in the world, should magnify diffi- 
culties or make mountains out of molehills. If you 
be afoot the way is as easy as another, but if you be 
driving, see that you have a good horse and be pre- 
pared to help him in the hard places. And then, 
have I not said it is one of the fairest ways in Tuscany ? 
And so indeed it will prove for you too if you have the 
courage to face it. For one by one the mountains 
stand back, the valleys open, the hills are gathered 
together on either side, and between, far and far away 
down a magical staircase all of grey and green and gold, 
where the olives are silver under the blue sky and the 
world is all Danae to the Sun, lies Val d'Arno, the 
valley of our hills. And yet I, who have seen it all 
and loved it not less than another, am but dumb when 
I should be most eloquent. How may I tell then 
of the gesture of the hills, or the serenity and certainty 
of those lonely heights that, as it were, in some in- 
comprehensible rhythm fall away so surely and so 
magically as though in them God had expressed some 
phrase of music, perfect in His heart, unheard till 
then, as indeed He has. No, I cannot speak of that 
majesty of a world that is, as it were, the only visible 
God, the only gesture — full of goodwill or enmity — 
that God has thought to make to us in the silence 
which we cannot break. 

So, at last, on the difficult road you come to the 
straggling precipitous village of S. Brigida, named after 
the sister of S. Andrew who, as I have told,^ came 
from Ireland to comfort him when he lay dying at 
Fiesole in 875. 

It seems that when S. Andrew was dead Brigida 
determined not to return home, but to seek out some 

^ See p. 4 et seq. 



298 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

lonely place on the hills and wait till another angel 
came to bring her once more where her brother was. 
And so she found her way to these lonely mountains, 
and even to this very place which for so long has 
borne her name. The little village to-day possesses a 
church dedicated to her, but it is not there but in the 
hills above the village that her grotto will be found. 
Here, close under a greater sanctuary, that of Madonna 
del Sasso, founded some six hundred years after her 
death, Brigid lived alone in the forest. The cave is 
just under the eastern wall of the church ; -you may 
reach it by a flight of steps from the priest's garden. 
Over the little altar you may read — 

Grotta nella quale S, Brigida sorella di S. Donate 
Faceva penitentiis nel secolo nono. 

And, in spite of its mistake, for she was the sister of 
Andrew and not of Donatus, one is glad to find that 
she is not forgotten. Nor is she : for before the 
church itself some one, who loved her, has set up a 
statue where on the pedestal you may read how she 
came from far Scotia to bring joy into Italy. 

Following the road round the valley you come pre- 
sently to Opaco, Lo Baco, or Lubaco, Castel Lobaco, 
for it was called by all these names, where is the Pieve 
of S. Martino. Bulls published by Pasquale II. and 
Innocent II. in 1103 and 1134, confirming to the 
Bishops of Fiesole the Church of S. Gervasio and the 
neighbouring church of S. Miniato, prove that at that 
time the place was called La Corte in Alpiniano.^ 
Later, the Church of S. Gervasio having fallen into 
ruin, its baptistery was transferred to the Church of 
S. Martino, which for long was under the patronage 
of the Servites of Monte Senario, who possessed for 
a time also the great sanctuary of Madonna del Sasso. 

^ Cf. Repetti, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 796. 



LA MADONNA DEL SASSO 299 

To reach this famous sanctuary you must turn 
sharply to the right just beyond Opaco, and presently, 
climbing somewhat steeply, you find yourself approach- 
ing the great mass of white buildings which surrounds 
one of the holiest shrines in Tuscany. 

It seems that towards the end of the fifteenth cen- 
tury 1 there lived a shepherd whose name was Ricovera. 
He was a widower and sick, but he had two children 
whom he sent every day over the mountains to guard his 
sheep. Good as they were, as they led the sheep from 
pasture to pasture they often passed an ancient taber- 
nacle where was a picture of Mary, and there they were 
used to say an Ave. And she who loves so well the 
simple of heart, one summer day — it was the 2nd of 
July, 1490, and her Festa of the Visitation — appeared to 
them, ah, the very light of Paradise, the Jesus Parvulus 
in her arms, and beside her two angels. The children 
fell on their knees, but she seated herself on a stone 
hard by, and they seemed to hear her say ever so 
gently that they should fear nothing, that she was 
their heavenly mother. Then she told them how that 
she wished a church to be built there in her honour, 
and bade them go and bring their father, for she 
wished to speak also to him of this church. And 
when they answered that he was sick in bed, she bade 
them again to call him since he was already healed. 
And in truth it was even so, and when Ricovera came 
Madonna gave him also her order to build the church, 
and vanished away. 

Very swiftly the joyful news spread through the 
neighbouring villages, and many and many came to 
the blessed stone from all parts. And on the Sunday 
in the octave of the Assumption, Mary, wishing to con- 

^ For all that concerns the Madonna del Sasso, see Anon., 
// Santuario della Madonna del Sasso (Firenze, 1884, Tip. 
Salani). 



300 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

firm the truth of her first appearing, showed herself 
once more on that stone, and those who saw her 
seemed to hear, as it were, an exhortation that the 
work of her church should be begun, for to those who 
invoked her there she would not be indifferent. And 
from that day offers of help came not only from the 
villages round about, but from Florence and from 
Fiesole, and from the Mugello. Then there befell a 
new prodigy. For when the work was begun in order 
to build more easily a place was chosen some 200 
paces whence the stone lay where Madonna had 
shown herself, and always what was built by day was 
by night thrown to the ground. And again a third 
time Mary appeared, and they heard her say that they 
should build nowhere save about that stone on which 
she stood, and if the place were narrow, she had 
chosen it, and if the place were rough, she had made 
it her own. So they began again without delay 
and dug foundations round about the stone, and in no 
long time a magnificent sanctuary rose on the hillside. 
And they took the picture before which the two 
children had recited their prayer and placed it in 
the tribune over the high altar, and a piece of the 
stone too they placed under the table of the high 
altar. 

Now when this new church rose on the mountains, 
the Servites of the S. Annunziata in Florence, those 
servants of Mary whose sanctuary stood not so far 
away on Monte Senario, took the government of it, for 
on them depended the Pieve of S. Martino all' Opaco ; 
and this was confirmed to them by a Bull of Pope 
Julius 11. on ist October, 1504. But because these 
Fathers, busied with their church in Florence, could 
not rightly occupy themselves with a new sanctuary, 
on the 23rd November, 1505, by means of the Flo- 
rentine notary Domenico Guidicci, the Oratorio del 



LA MADONNA DEL SASSO 301 

Sasso was ceded by the Fathers Priore Giovan Filippo 
da Pizzighettone and the Pievano of S. Martino, 
Antonio Zanchi, to all / nobili e posside?iti of that 
Pieve ; and Antonio Cambini Uliviero di Scipione 
Guadagni, Niccolo de' Pazzi and Bernardo da Castig- 
lione accepted the guardianship of it in the name of 
all, and Pope Julius II. approved this in a Bull of 23rd 
May, 1507. 

Thus the place passed into the hands of laymen, 
who immediately engaged a priest to serve it : who 
the first was is not known, but in 1507 P. Guglielmo 
da Ferrara, a Servite, was elected, and for 150 years 
the custodi were chosen from the Servites of the SS. 
Annunziata, till at last the Pope saw fit to forbid 
Religious to disperse themselves through all the coun- 
try places, and so in 1642 the guardians elected the 
priest Ippolito Ridolfi, a Florentine, to be cusfode, since 
when the priests have always been seculars. 

The church itself is in the form of a Greek cross ; 
finely planned and well built. It is spoiled by its 
barocco decoration, so that the only things of real 
interest are the two primitive relics, the stone which is 
preserved under the high altar behind an iron grating, 
and the picture before which the children prayed. 
This picture is a Giottesque painting of the fourteenth 
century. It represents the Madonna and Child be- 
tween S. John Baptist and S. Laurence, and below is 
a little kneeling figure, probably the donor. Loaded 
with crowns and jewels, it is visited every year by vast 
crowds of pilgrims, especially on the second Sunday in 
May, and on the Feasts of the Visitation and the 
Assumption and the 22nd of August, often too in time 
of need it has been borne in procession. 

In the Bull in which Julius II. gave the Oratorio 
del Sasso to the Convent of the SS. Annunziata, we find 
this passage : Propter miracula quae inibi intercessione 



302 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

Beatae Mariae Virginis operatus Altissimus quoddam 
Oratorium incoeptum existtt, ad quod ob hujus modi 
miracula confluit multitudo fidelium, pias in eodem 
Oratorio eleemosinas, et oblationes offerentium. ... Of 
these words we have many a confirmation. In August, 
1542, when Florence and the surrounding country, 
and especially the Mugello, were suffering from earth- 
quakes, the picture of the Madonna del Sasso was 
borne in procession to Florence. It was met at the 
Porta S. Gallo by the Servite Fathers, and having 
been carried round the Duomo and other churches, 
it was exposed for public veneration in the Piazza 
dell' Annunziata. Many gifts were offered it, among 
them the following : six table-cloths, four curtains, 
four veils for the chalice, twelve purificators, nine 
napkins, four corporals, a purse embroidered in gold, 
a flower in a vase, silken stuffs (and that the nuns of 
the Murate gave), eight flowers of silk, a garland of 
flowers of silk with three colombiney an aspersorio and 
two new lamps. The dyers gave fourteen great 
candles, four of middle size, and a quantity of wax ; 
the porters, a mantle of brocade with the arms of the 
Grand Duke. And it happened, Giani tells us, that 
one, seeing the tabernacle pass through the Duomo, 
said : " What is it that upsets so many people ; that 
causes them to waste so much money and lose so 
much time? Forsooth, a picture adored by poor 
shepherds." This wretch, according to Giani, had 
scarcely finished when he fell down dead. 

Miracles, too. Madonna has done, not once nor 
twice, the last, or nearly the last, being in 1875, when 
on the twenty-second of August, the titular feast of 
the sanctuary, the canopy fell during the singing of 
the gospel, brin^g to the ground two youths and a 
little girl, but no one was hurt ; then a voice was heard 
crying "Miracle," for which cause, says one author, 



SIECI AND TREBBIO 303 

the Mass being over the celebrant intoned a solemn 
Te Deum, 



But the heat of the day is over, evening is coming 
over the hills, far and far away Florence waits for our 
return. 

If you be on foot you will go by the straight road 
down the hillside from the sanctuary to S. Brigida, 
and crossing the highway there, follow a road down 
into the valley beside the Sieci to Trebbio, where there 
is a picture by Andrea del Castagno, and so once more 
to Mulino del Piano and Sieci, where you will find the 
evening train to Florence. But if you are driving, or 
being afoot are not yet weary, you will follow the road 
from Madonna del Sasso back to Opaco, and there, 
when you come to the highway, just outside the village, 
turn sharply to the right, and follow the road on the 
hillside, coming at last into the Mugnone valley, high 
up on the side of Montereggi at Olavo ; and so through 
Buiano and Saletta to Fiesole and the tramway. 



XIX 

MONTE SENARIO 

PERHAPS the pleasantest and certainly the least 
fatiguing way to reach the Sacro Eremo of 
Monte Senario is to drive thither — either along Via 
Bolognese, through Trespiano and Montorsoli to Prato- 
lino, where you take the road to the right to L' Acquirico 
and thence in about three miles climb up to the sanc- 
tuary itself; or passing through Fiesole by the Via 
Ferrucci, follow it to Saletta, Montereggi ^ and Bojana, 
and just beyond L'Olavo take the road to the left, 
which presently joins the road to L'Acquirico at Casa 
del Vento. Of these two roads the better is that by 
Pratolino. 

To reach Monte Senario without a carriage the most 
honourable way is to go on foot along Via Bolognese, 
but the easiest is to take the train from Florence so far 
as Vaglia, whence it is a climb of some six miles. I 
shall content myself here, however, with describing the 
way by Via Bolognese, which is, in truth, as I have said, 
the best of all, whether you be on foot or in vettura. 

The Via Bolognese leaves Florence by Porta S. Gallo. 
It is the most ancient of all the highroads that cross 
the Tuscan Apennines, and was perhaps the most fre- 
quented of all between Lombardy and Tuscany. It 
has been very much what it is to-day since the fourteenth 

1 This way §o far as Montereggi is described on p. 2^7 et seq, 
304 




^,\ 



MONTE SENARIO 305 

century, but it was in 1762, in the time of the Grand 
Duke Francesco II., that the actual road we call to- 
day Via Bolognese was opened. By this road of old 
it was five posts, thirty-six Tuscan miles, from Flor- 
ence in the Grand Duchy to Filigare on the confines 
of the Patrimony, the post from Filigare to Logano 
being almost wholly in Papal territory. 

Mounting steadily all the way from the city gate 
between villas and gardens, you pass Villa Salviati, II 
Pino,^ and Lastra, coming at last to the ancient borgo 
of Trespiano, about four miles from Florence. Here 
of old the nobles of Cercina and then the Cattani 
of Florence ruled and were patrons of the church 
once dedicated to S. Maria but now to S. Lucia, close 
to which stood a hospice or spedaletto, to which 
Contessa Beatrice di Capraja left a legacy in 1276, 
which was paid and put to good use it seems, till in 
1 75 1 the place was suppressed. The Church of S. 
Lucia, founded certainly in the tenth century, has kept 
nothing of its ancient beauty or interest, and is, indeed, 
scarcely worth a visit. 

Leaving Trespiano the great road passes above the 
cemetery, which since 1784 has served as the public 
burial ground for the Commune of Florence. A little 
beyond it is the little borgo of Pian di S. Bartolo, close 
to which is the ancient Spedale di S. Bartolommeo, a 
hospital for pilgrims, founded already in the thirteenth 
century, when the Contessa Beatrice di Capraja 
named it also in her will. From S. Bartolommeo it is 
about a mile to the village of Montorsoli, where 
Michele d'Agnolo di Poggibonsi, called Montorsoli, 
was born in 1507.2 From here it is another mile to 
the tabernacle, where the road climbs to Pratolino 
and the Villa of Prince Demidoff. It is almost im- 

^ See p. 230. 

2 Cf. Vasari, Vita di detto Scultore. 
20 



3o6 COUNIRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

possible to get permission to see this beautiful old 
villa, and therefore I shall give but a brief account of 
it ; moreover, after all it is but an incident on the road 
to-day which leads to the Sanctuary of Monte Senario, 
that convent which already you may see soaring above 
you far enough away as yet. 

It was the Grand Duke Francesco I. who built the 
place, on the eastern slope of Monte Uccellatojo, in 
1569, spending immense sums on the villa and gardens, 
which are full of statues, grottoes and fountains. It 
seems indeed that " the peasantry around were reduced 
to misery because he threw so large an amount of 
ground out of cultivation to make the park, and by 
the destruction of their cattle in hauling marble, stone 
and sand up the long steep hill from Florence".^ 
Bernardo Buontalenti built the place and won the 
praise even of his brother architects, and Francesco 
employed the best gardeners of the day to lay out the 
gardens, while Francesco Petrucci, Pier Dandini and 
Giovanni di San Giovanni, to say nothing of Crescenzio 
Onofrio Romano, adorned the rooms with frescoes. 
Bernardo Sgrilli ^ gives us an enthusiastic account of 
the place. It seems there were " statues standing in 
niches cut out of evergreen hedges ; strange animals 
lurking in caves which suddenly spurted water over the 
unwary, cunningly devised grottoes containing life-like 
figures or even groups ; here a shepherd piped to his 
flock, there a knife-grinder sharpened a scythe ; there 
was a fortress, too, whose walls suddenly became alive 
with soldiers firing volleys at an imaginary enemy, 
whilst cannon boomed from the embrasures and the 

1 Cf. Janet Ross, Florentine Villas (Dent, 1902), p. gi. 

'^ Bernardo Sgrilli, Descrizione della Regia Villa, Fontane e 
Fabbriche di Pratolino (Stamperia Ducale, Firenze, 1742) ; cf. 
Janet Ross, op. cit., p. 92, whose redaction I have for the most 
part been well content to use. 



MONTE SENARIO 307 

rattle of drums was heard. In another grotto a pretty 
shepherdess tripped daintily along and filled her pails 
with water at a well, disdaining to look at a lovesick 
swain who played plaintive airs on his bagpipes ; 
Vulcan made sparks fly from his anvil ; a miller ground 
corn at his mill ; a huntsman encouraged his hounds, 
baying as though they were alive . . . other most 
beautiful and stupendous inventions, too many to tell 
of, were set in motion by divers hidden machines 
driven by water — and if any unwary visitor sat down 
on a bench that seemed to invite him, or took refuge 
from the sun in a cool grotto, streams of water would 
pour down on him so that he was drenched to the 
skin in a moment." So far had the Medici fallen. 
Instead of the work of Leonardo or Donatello they 
have come to patronise a company of toy makers, the 
contrivers of mechanical freaks. But since nothing 
now remains of all this rubbish, and the trees have 
outlasted the mechanical toys of Francesco, we might 
well forget them, but that they seemed to amuse a 
greater than any Grand Duke, Sieur Michael de 
Montaigne, who passed this way in 1580. "The 
Grand Duke," says he, " has used all his five senses 
to beautify the villa. . . . The house is contemptible 
as seen from afar, but very fine when you come near, 
though not so handsome as some of ours in France. . . . 
But marvellous is a grotto with several chambers ; this 
surpasses anything we have seen elsewhere. It is all 
encrusted with a certain stuff they say was brought 
from the mountains, which is fastened on with invisible 
nails. Not only does the movement of water make 
music and harmony, but it causes various statues to 
move and doors to shut, animals also plunge in to 
drink, and other such devices. In one moment the 
whole grotto is filled with water, every chair squirts it 
over your thighs, and fleeing therefrom up the steps to 



3o8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

the villa, if they choose they can start a thousand jets 
and drench you to the skin." 

Another traveller, too, an Englishman this time, has 
left us an account of this place. In 1645, John 
Evelyn passed this way on the road to Bologna. He 
writes in his diary ; " The house is a square of four 
pavilions, with a fair platform about it balustraded 
with stone, situate in a large meadow, ascending like 
an amphitheatre, having at the bottom a huge rock, 
with water running in a small channel, like a cascade ; 
on the other side are the gardens. The whole place 
seems consecrated to pleasure and summer retirement. 
The inside of the palace may compare with any in 
Italy for furniture of tapestry, beds, etc. ; and the 
gardens are delicious and full of fountains. In the 
grove sits Pan, feeding his flock, the water making a 
melodious sound through his pipe ; and a Hercules, 
whose club yields a shower of water, which falling 
into a great shell, covers a naked woman riding on the 
backs of dolphins. In another grotto is Vulcan and his 
family, the walls richly composed of corals, shells, 
copper, and marble figures, with the hunting of several 
beasts moving by the force of water. Here, having 
been well washed for our curiosity, we went down 
a large walk, at the sides whereof several slender 
streams of water gush out of pipes concealed under- 
neath, that interchangeably fall into each other's 
channels, making a lofty and perfect arch, so that 
a man on horseback may ride under it, and not 
receive one drop of wet. This canopy, or arch 
of water, I thought one of the most surprising 
magnificences I had ever seen, and very refreshing 
in the heat of summer. At the end of this very 
long walk stands a woman in white marble, in 
posture of a laundress wringing water out of a piece 
of linen, very naturally formed into a vast laver, the 



MONTE SENARIO 309 

work and invention of M. Angelo Buonarotti.^ Hence 
we ascended Mount Parnassus, where the Muses played 
to us on hydraulic organs. Near this is a great 
aviary. All these waters come from the rock in the 
garden, in which is the statue of a giant representing 
the Apennines, at the foot of which stands this villa.'' ^ 
The villa thus described by Sgrilli, Montaigne and 
Evelyn was destroyed by Ferdinando of Lorraine in 
the beginning of the nineteenth century. His successor, 
Leopoldo 11. , threw down all the grottoes with their 
toys. In 1872 Prince Demidoff bought the place, 
then a ruin. He began to build, and restored some of 
the smaller villas in the park, but his death in 1885 
seems to have put a stop to any further work. 



From the Villa di Pratolino to Monte Senario is a 
distance of about five miles. At L'Acquirico, where the 
height and beauty of Monte Senario begin to appear in 
all their splendour, you enter the circle as it were of the 
sanctuary. For it was there the seven blessed founders 
rested by a well when they first came to the mountain ; 
and there later Beato Amidei raised a child from 
the dead, anointing him with water from the fountain. 
At the next Cross you enter the ancient enclosure of 
the convent, once protected by a wall much higher 
than the present one. But before entering in, it may 
be as well to inquire into the history of this holy 
and beautiful place. 

It was in all the turbulence and travail of the 
thirteenth century, when the wars of Frederic and the 
troubles of the Church distracted the world, that S. 
Francis of Assisi founded his religion for the 
resurrection of love among men.' It is not certainly 

^ Certainly not the work of Michelangelo. 
'Evelyn, Diary, vol. i., p. 190. 



3IO COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of any such splendour and humanity that we think 
when we hear the Order of Servites named, yet it was 
in the same century that it was born, not like the 
Franciscan Order, the work of a single heart full of the 
genius of human love, but of seven Florentines who, 
praying often at a certain shrine of Mary in the city, were 
called by the crowd I Servi di Maria — the servants of 
Mary. The names of these seven men were Bonfiglio 
Monaldi, Giovanni Manetti, Benedetto d'Antella, 
Bartolommeo Amidei, Ricovero Lippi Uguccioni, Gher- 
ardino Sostagni, Alessio Falconieri. It was about the 
time that Gregory IX. instituted the Angelus, that is 
to say, he ordained that three times every day the 
faithful should recite the Angelical Salutation. An 
immense enthusiasm of love and worship had suddenly 
seemed to grow up in the world for Mary Madonna. 
For some years now the Laudesi ^ with all the city in 
their wake had worshipped her image in the shrine at 
Or San Michele. Gregory himself had approved the 
Ordini dei Militi Martani sj\d the Ordini di S. Maria 
della Mercede for the redemption of slaves, nor was 
he slow to welcome the Compagnia which Florence 
had called, half in derision, I Servi di Maria Addolorata. 
It seems that a confraternity of Laudesi had for 
almost a hundred years occupied themselves with an 
oratory called S. Maria Maggiore, built on that spot 
where later Giotto's tower was to rise. To this 
confraternity the seven citizens named above, together 
with others among the best families in the city, 
belonged. Now it happened on the Vigil of the 
Assumption, the 15th August, 1233, that these Lau- 
desi were reunited in their oratory, and after solem- 
nising the triumph of their Lady with extraordinary 
ardour, were persevering in the contemplation of her 

^ Laudesi — Si conosceva col nome di Laudesi par la diuiurna 
sua costumanza di recitare e cantare le lodi della Vergine. 



MONTE SENARIO 311 

glories, when suddenly an ineffable joy overwhelmed the 
heart of those seven citizens, and they were rapt into 
ecstacy. And lo, in a globe of light from which shot 
forth seven tongues of fire, which descended upon the 
head of each of them, Madonna stood surrounded by 
angels, and she called sweetly to each of the seven in 
turn to abandon the world. 

At first no one could speak, but by-and-by Monaldi, 
the eldest among them, began to confess the disgust 
he felt for this passing life and his love for eternal 
things, nor were they long before, finding themselves 
one and all in agreement, they decided to do even as 
Madonna had said. So on the 8th of the following 
September, which was her birthday, they went out of 
the city, led by Monaldi, to a place called Camarzia, 
where they stayed. One of Monaldi's first cares was 
to provide the Company with an expert minister of 
souls, so that without hindrance they might pursue 
the "way of high perfection". He chose the priest 
Giacomo da Poggibonsi, the director of the Society of 
the Laudesi, who later became third general of the 
Order, the Order of Servites. Having chosen him, 
Monaldi took him to the Bishop of Florence, Ardingo 
Trotti, to get his permission; when, as it seems, a 
vision of seven angels confirmed him in his willing- 
ness to give the necessary faculty. Camarzia, the 
place to which they had retired, was the old Campo 
di Marte, that is to say that open space, without the 
walls, where now S. Croce stands. 

There, with Monaldi as the first superior, the Com- 
pany became so well known and beloved that the 
children called out at them when they passed / Servi 
di Beata Vergine Maria, and so great was the number 
of the people which visited them that at last, seeing 
they found no silence or solitude there, Monaldi decided 



312 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

to choose another place for their abode farther from 
the city. It seems, however, to have been Madonna 
herself who chose Monte Senario for them. A certain 
Conte Giuliano had lately left the bishop the whole of 
that mountain, and he, moved thereto as it is said by 
Madonna, gave it to the Company. It was then a 
mere wild upland covered with forest. The Company 
took possession of it on the Vigil of the Ascension, the 
31st May, 1234. These, therefore, are the great Festas 
of the Servites : the 15th August, on which the vision 
appeared and the Order was born ; the 8th September, 
on which the seven first retired to Camarzia ; and the 
Feast of the Ascension, on which they took possession 
of Monte Senario. Once in possession of the moun- 
tain, where they found indeed silence and solitude 
enough, their first business was to build an oratory 
where Mass could be said. For this building they 
easily won the permission of Bishop Ardingo, and 
indeed he agreed to consecrate the place, finding it, 
as he said when he visited it, a new Tebaide. It was 
not Monaldi's intention to found a new Order; he 
founded a hermitage where he might live outside the 
world, as it were, with his six brethren ; nor did they 
try to win others to their company, but remained in 
that solitary place in prayer and contemplation, and in 
adoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose servants 
they were. " It was not my intention," said Blessed 
Alessio Falconieri later to Pietro da Todi, " nor the 
intention of any of my companions to found a new 
Order. We did not dream that our union was only 
the beginning of a multitude of brethren ; we thought 
only of joining together for divine inspiration, and so 
to follow more easily the will of God. It was indeed 
entirely the doing of Our Lady that the Order was 
founded, and she herself entitled it the Order of the 



MONTE SENARIO 313 

Blessed Virgin Mary.^ On the 27th February, 1239, 
being the third Sunday in Lent, the cold was intense, 
and the chronicler of the Order tells us it was colder 
still on the height of Monte Senario. Nevertheless, as 
though it were mid-autumn, the vineyards were hung 
with grapes and the "ground covered with the greenest 
grass, and there were flowers too as though spring were 
in the world. Now Cardinal Castiglioni was there on 
that day and with him the good Bishop of Florence, 
and, seeing this miracle and the love Madonna bore 
the place, they wept for joy, for they perceived, being 
holy men, how that celestial Lady would multiply her 
servants. And later the good bishop was the more 
confirmed in his thought when in Florence in the 
darkness of night, standing in profound prayer, he saw 
again that vision he had seen before. Now when 
Holy Week began the pious hermits were occupied 
with the Passion of our Saviour and the bitter sorrows 
of His Holy Mother, until, on the evening of Good 
Friday, all being come together into the oratory, 
their compassion grew so poignant that they all one 
by one burst into sudden tears. But the sorrowful 
Mother, surrounded by clouds of angels, came down 
to them, and in her hand she held a habit of black 
and an open book with the Rule of S. Augustine 
written there, and there was written, too, the title in 
letters of gold, the Servants of Mary, and she bore, 
too, a most beautiful branch of palm. Then, inviting 
her servants to draw near to her and holding in her 
hand the dark habit which she destined for them, 
instead of the white they had worn till then, making 
as though she would clothe them, she spoke thus : 
" I have elected you, dear ones, to be my Servants, 
and under this name you are to cultivate the vineyard 

^ C/. P. A. S., II Sacro Ercmo di Monte Senario sopra Firenze 
(Prato, 1876), p. 32. 



314 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

of my Son. Here is the habit which you are to wear 
for the future. Its blackness will remind you of the 
sorrows which I suffered bitterly in the Crucifixion and 
Death of my Only Son, and the Rule of Augustine, 
which I give you as the Rule of your life, will help 
you to attain this Palm which alwaits you in heaven 
if you faithfully persevere even to the end." 

Now, the bishop had seen also this very vision in 
Florence, and so, returning to Monte Senario, having 
celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit, he clothed 
them at once in the new habit given them by the 
celestial foundress of the Order. 

Whatever their intention may have been, the news 
of these wonders and of the sanctity of the seven foun- 
ders spread through the city ; helped no doubt by the 
foundation about this time of a little hospice just 
without the city gate. The Beati soon found indeed 
that they could not always remain in that solitude, 
it was necessary to live, and to live it was necessary to 
beg, and therefore some of the brethren were used to 
come down to the city ; it was for them, it seems, that 
the rest house which later became" the church and 
convent of the SS. Annunziata was founded. For long 
it seems there had been a shrine there, when on 8th 
September, 1250, the little oratory of S. Maria in 
Caffagio as it was then called was founded. Later, 
with the leave of Innocent IV. and the Bishop of 
Florence, they enlarged the place ; three citizens 
giving them there a piece of land for a church. Thus 
the SS. Annunziata was built, and within, a certain 
Bartolommeo Fiorentino, as it is said, painted a pic- 
ture for them of the Annunciation, before which 
miracles began to happen.^ 

1 For an account of SS. Annunziata, see my Florence and 
Northern Tuscany (Methuen, IQ07), pp. 259-61. And for the 
history of the picture and the rqiracles, Aripn., Miracolosa 



MONTE SENARIO 315 

It was in 1253 that Filippo Benizi joined the new 
Order, becoming later its general. To him is due its 
immense success. A doctor of medicine of the Uni- 
versity of Padua, he spent thirty-two years in the 
Order, a great preacher, who spoke always of peace. 
Nor was Juliana Falconieri, the daughter of Riguar- 
data Falconieri, who had helped to found the Church 
of SS. Annunziata, behind S. Filippo in her states- 
manship. She founded in 1306 the Third Order, for 
women — the Mantellate. And when S. Filippo came 
to die " he found none, not only among women, but 
in the whole Order, more fitted than Juliana to be its 
propagator and moderator, and to her he commended 
if'.i 

The convent which we see to-day, half-hidden among 
the woods, rising like a crown on the mountain, is 
interesting chiefly because it is still in possession of 
the Friars, and for this cause it may well charm us 
more than the Certosa di Val d'Ema has perhaps 
been able to do. They are both — if we exclude the 
tombs of the Certosa — without any work of art of first- 
rate importance. Here on Monte Senario we find a 
Madonna and Child, by the school of the della Robbia, 
and certain late pictures by Giovanni di S. Giovanni 
and others, almost nothing else. But then it was not 
to see any work of art we came so far, but partly to 
see the convent, still in the hands of the Order which 
founded it, and partly to see the hills — the hills of 
Tuscany. 

Immagine della SS. Annunziata di Firenze (Tip. Le Monnier, 
Firenze, 1844). 

^ See Roman Breviary, for her Feast Day. 



INDEX 



Affrico, I, 2, lo, 23. 

Agli, Antonio degli, 161, 193. 

Albizzi, Vanna degli, 17 ; and see 

under Families. 
Antella — 

S. Caterina a, 113-15. 

S. Maria Incinula a, 1 12-13. 
Arcetri, 146. 
Artimino, 209-13. 

S. Leonardo a, 210. 
Artists — 

Alberti, L. B., 81, 128. 

Albertinelli, 14.1. 

Allori, 163. 

Amico del Viaggiatore, 107. 

Amico di Sandro, 220. 

Ammanati, 272. 

Andrea di Giovanni, 80. 

Andrea del Sarto, 2, 42, 200. 

Angelico, Fra, 45, 46. 

Antonio Veneziano, 76. 

Baldovinetti, 88, 152. 

Bandinelli, Baccio, 48. 

Bartolommeo, Fra, 88, 226. 

Bicci di Lorenzo, 80, 127-29. 

Botticelli, 34-35, 50, 136. 

Botticini, 29, 129, 220. 

Bronzino, 129. 

Brunelleschi, 7, 47, 223, 245, 

275- 
Cigoli, 163. 
Desiderio da Settignano, 8, 31, 

33. 36. 47, 81, loi. 
Donatello, 141, 193, 223, 238. 
Francesco di Giov. Botticini, 

87. 
Franciabigio, 200. 



Artists {continued) — 

Gaddi, Agnolo, 10, 85, 111-12, 

113-15, 173, 178, 186, 193. 

Taddeo, 80, 
Ghiberti, 223. 
Ghirlandajo, Dom., 59, jj, 85, 

87, 178, 253, 269, 296. Ri- 

dolfo, 21, 60, 129, 172, 195. 
Giotto, school of, jt, 87, 93, 

94, no, 112, 132, 136, 143, 

172, 195, 196, 209, 216, 219, 

220, 235, 237, 240, 243, 301. 
Giovanni da Bologna, jj, 140, 

272. 
Giovanni del Biondo, 66 and 

note. 
Giovanni di S. Giovanni, 47. 
Giusto d' Andrea, 9, 78. 
Gozzoli, Benozzo, 230. 
Jacopo da Empoli, 163. 
Lippi, Filippino, 59, 79, 84. 

Fra Lippo, 103. 
Lorenzo di Bicci, 186. 
Lorenzo di Credi, 46. 
Lorenzo Monaco, 171. 
Lorenzo di Niccol6, 40, 255. 
Luciano da Laurana, 246. 
Maiano, Benedetto da, 246. 

Giuliano da, 94. 
Masaccio, 75. 
Maza, Tommaso del, 163. 
Michelangelo, 31, 40, 141. 
Michelozzo, 51, 164, 223, 264. 
Mino da Fiesole, 56, 142. 
Nelli, Pietro, 163. 
Neri di Bicci, 10, 59, 103, 189. 
Niccol6 di Pier Gerini, 42, 107. 



317 



3i8 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 



Artists [continued) — 

Orcagna, Andrea, 57, 140. Ber- 
nardo, 9. 

Paolino da Pistoja, 108. 

Passignano, 163. 

Perugino, 46. 

Pessello, 88. 

Piero di Cosimo, 59. 

Pisano, Niccol6, loi. 

Poccetti, 140. 

Pontormo, 144, 200, 209. 

Puligo, Dom., no. 

Robbia, Andrea della, 164- 
65, 259, 265-66. Giovanni 
della, 56, 141, 172, 216, 217. 
Luca della, 29, 43, 152, 164- 
65, 169-71. School, 50, 85- 
87, loi, 195, 216, 218-19. 

Rossello, Cosimo, 10, 163. 

Rossellino, Antonio, 43, 94, 
152. Benedetto, 43. 

Rusiici, Franc, 219. 

Sangallo, Giuliano da, 198. 

Sellajo, 48-50. 

Sodoma, 91. 

Spinello Aretino, 113-15, 152, 
252, 

Verrocchio, School of, 177. 
Assumption, Feast of, in Tuscany, 

190. 



Bagazzano, 38-39. 
Bagno a Ripoli, 105-7. 

Badia a Ripoli, 252. 

Compagnia della Croce a, 106. 

Palazzetto Pretorio, 106. 

S. Pietro, T05-6. 
Bagnolo, 159-60. 

S. Martino a, 159. 
Barriera, scenes at, 1-2. 
Beata Giovanna di Signal 120- 

25- 
Berenson, Mr., quoted, 9, 48, 87, 

200, 220. 
Bigallo, 109. 
Bisenzio, the, 84. 
Boccaccio, 10, 11-30. 

Country of, 1-30. 

Casa di, 11-13. 



Brozzi, 86-89. 
S. Andrea a, 87. 
S. Domencio a, 86-87. 
S. Martino a, 88. 

Calenzano, 240-44. 

S. Donato a, 240-41. 

S. Niccolo a, 243. 
Campaldino, 72, 
Campi, 81, 82-86. 

S. Lorenzo a, 85. 

S. Maria Assunta a, 84-85. 

S. Martino a, 85. 

Rocca, 81. 

S. Stefano, 84. 
Campora, 173. 

S. Maria, 173. 
Candeli, 253-55. 

S. Andrea, 254. 

Badia a, 253-54. 
Capannuccia, 191. 

S. Ilario alia, 191. 
Cappella de* Corbinelli, 142. 
Cappello, Bianca, 202-6. 
Capraja, 133. 
Carmignano, 206-9. 

S. Michele, 208-9. 
Careggi, see under Villas. 

S. Pietro a, 229-30. 
Castagnolo, 190-91. 

S, JMaria a, 190-91. 
Castel Pulci, 192. 
Castello, example of a, 131. . 
Castiglionchio, 186. 
Castruccio Castracani, 64, 73, 75, 

'j'j, 83, 86, 118, 208, 243. 
Catiline, 232-35. 
Cavalcanti, Guido, 92. 
Certosa di val d Ema, 138-42. 
Chianti, 37. 
Cintoja, 103. 
Colonnata di Sesto, 236. 
Comeana, 213. 
Compiobbi, 37. 

Way to, 174-76. 
Corbignano, 3, 11, 18, 31. 
Corso Donati, 2, 72. 
Cristina of Lorraine, 76. 
Croce, La, 107-8. 
Crbcifisso in Alto, 175. 



INDEX 



319 



Decameron and Council of 

Trent, 24 and note i. 

Palaces of, see Poggio Gherardo 
and Palmieri under Villas. 
Doccia, 23. 

Ginori, 236. 

Sopra Sieci, 295-96. 
Dogajella, the, 94. 
Dudley, Robert, 279-91. 

Families :— 
Abati, 254. 

Acciajuoli, 139-41, 177. 
Adimari, 144. 
Agli, 45. 75-76. 
Alberti, 133, 143-44, 250. 
Albizzi, 17, 69, 90. 
Aldobrandini, 235. 
Alessandri, 62, 66. 
Altoviti, 44. 
Amidei, 144. 
Antinori, 172. 
Baroncelli, 17. 
Bartolini-Salimbeni, 43. 
Betti, 3, II. 
Borgonovo, Conti, 95. 
Buonaccorsi, 69. 
Buondelmonti, 103, 156-59, 161. 
Baldovinetti, 177. 
Cadolinghi, 117, 127, 191, 193, 

197 ; and see under Set- 

timo. 
Capponi, 92. 
Caponsacchi, 259. 
Cavalcanti, 92. 
Cordoni, 85. 
Cresci, 264. 
Davanzati, 231. 
Fini, 28. 
Forteg^erri, 62. 
Gain, 145. 
Ginori, 8^. 
Guadagni, 177. 
Guidi, 187, 241-43. 
Magalotti, 109. 
Manzecca, 62. 
Mazzinghi, 82. 
Medici, 38, 45, 137, 198-207, 

221-29. See under Medici. 
Michelozzi, 93 



Families {continued) — 

Orsini, 192. 

Palmieri, 28-29. 

Panciatichi, 76. 

Pandolfini, 41. 

Peruzzi, 109, 112. 

Pitti, 80, 245-49. 

Pulci, 192. 

Ricasoli, 69. 

Ricci, 143. 

Rinuccini, 192. 

Ristori, 38. 

Rucellai, 81. 

Salterelli, 294. 

Salviati, 109, 177. 

Sforza of S. Fiora, 21 and note i. 

Spinelli, 254. 

Strozzi, 62. 

Tedalda, 40, 41. 

Tedaldini, 41. 

Tolomei, 28, 90-91. 

Tornabuoni, 216. 

Tosinghi, 68. 

Visdomini, 67, 68. 

Vespucci, 78. 

Zati, 3, 8. 
Federigo II., Emperor, 134-35. 
Fiesole, 44-61. 

S. Alessandro, 59. 

S. Ansano, 48-50. 

Badia, 46, 47. 

S. Bernardino, 59. 

Canonica, 57. 

S. Domenico, 25, 44-46. 

Duomo, 56, 57. 

Episcopal Palace, 57. 

S. Francesco, 59. 

S. Maria Primerana, 58. 

Oratorio di S. Jacopo, 57. 

Palazzo Pretorio, 58. 

Riposo de' Vescovi, 48. 

Seminario, 57. 

Tre Pulzelle, 48. 

Varchi's description of, 52. 
Florence, scenery round, 32, 35- 

36, 37-33, S9-6i, 193-94. 
Fontelucente, 270. 
Fonte Pidocchio, 109. 
Fossataccio, 36. 
Fossinaia, 18. 



320 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 



Galileo, 145-46. 
Gangalandi, 125-30, 

S. Lucia a, 130. 

S. Martino a, 127-29 ; view 
from, 129-30. 
Gonfolina Pass, 133. 
Greve, The, 102. 

Hawkwood, 6, 63, 69, 100, 215, 

275-. 
Humiliati, 74-75. 

IMPRUNETA, 159-71. 

L'Immagine a, 166-69. 

S. Maria dell', 161-71. 
Incontro, 182-83. 
Inghirami, 47. 

JozzoLi, 145. 

La Loggia, 230. 

La Serra, 209. 

Landor, 23. 

Lastra, 115, 125, 126-29. 

Loggia di S. Antonio, 127. 

Oratorio di S. Maria, 126. 
Laudesi, 60. 
Le Caldine, 258. 
Le Termine, 209. 
Leghorn hats, 83. 
Legnaja, 103-4. 

S. Angiolo, 103-4. 

S. Quirico, 103. 
Lippi, Lorenzo, 132. 

Maiano, 20, 

S. Martino a, 20. 
Madonna del Sasso, 298-303. 
Malmantile, 118, 130-32. 

S. Pietro a, 132. 
Mantignano, 102. 

S. Maria a, 102. 
Marsilio Ficino, 51, 223. 
Medici, Clarice de', 51. 

Cosimo de', 45, 47, 222-25. 

Giovanni de', 47, 51. 

Giuliano de', 51. 

Lorenzo de', 47, 50, 51, 198 
99, 223, 225-29. 

Pier Francesco de", 272. 

See also under Families. 



Mensola,- Ponte a, i, 3, 10, 18. 

S. Martino a, 3-10. 
Meoste, 107. 

Mirandola, Pico della, 47, 227. 
Miransii, 183-86. 
Mont' Albano, 40, 207. 
Montacuto, 176-77. 

S. Jacopo a, 177. 
Montaguto (presso S. Gersol6), 

144. 
Mont' Amiata, 37, 61, 83. 
Monte Cascioli, 117, 191, 
Monte Ceceri, 11, 19, 60. 
Monte Morello, 46, 240. 
Monte Oliveto, 90-92. 
Monte Orlando, 117. 
Monte Pilli, 108. 
Monte Senario, 59, 60, 258, 304, 

309-15- 
Montebuoni, 156-59. 

S. Pietro a, 159. 
Montecchio, 191. 
Montelupo, 133-37. 

S. Giovanni Evangelista, 135- 
36. 
Montereggi, 258, 260-61. 

S. Ilario, 260. 
Monticelli, 93. 
Montici, 145. 

S. Margherita, 145. 
Montisoni, Castello di, iii. 
Montorsoli, 258. 
Mosciano, S. Andrea a, 194-95. 
Mugnone, the, 46, 72, j-T)- 
Mulino del Piano, 294. 

NOVOLI— 

S. Cristofano, 'jj. 
S. Maria, 76-77. 

Oleggio, Giov. di, 83. 
Olive tani, the, 33. 
Ombrone, the, 197. 
Ontignano, 61. 
Opaco, 298-99. 
Oratorio di S. Ansano, 48-50, 
Oratorio della Cupola, 82. 
Oratorio del Vanella, 34-35. 
Ordeal of Fire, 97-98. 



INDEX 



321 



Padule, S. Maria a, 238. 
Palio, the, at Ponte alle Mosse, 

72-73- 
Palmieri Matteo, 28-29. 
Paradise, Badiuzza a, 250. 
Paterno, S. Stefano a, 108. 
Peretola, 73, 77-81. 

S. Maria, 78. 
Perkins, Mr. Mason, quoted, 

66. 
Petriolo, 80-81. 

S. Biagio, 80-81. 
Pian di Giullari, 145, 146. 
Pieve, explanation of, 84. 
Platonic Academy, 47. 
Poggio Ghiandelli, 37. 
Poggio della Selva, 39. 
Poliziano, 47, 51-52, 223, 225. 
Pontassieve, 188. 
Ponte della Badia, 230. 
Ponte di Certosa, 156. 

della Chiosina, 240. 

a Greve, 93. 

alle Mosse, 72-73. 

di Stagno, 189. 
Porcelains, the Ginori, 236. 
Porta S. Frediano, 90. 
Porta Romana, 155. 
Pozzolatico, 142. 
Prato, Card. Niccolo da, 78. 
Pratolino, 59. 

QUERCETO, S. JACOPO A, 238. 

Quiete, La, 217-21. 

Qiiinto, S. Maria a, 235. 

Quintole, 171. 

Quaracchi, 81. 

Quarto, 221. 

Quarto (presso Ripoli), 255-56. 

Redi, Francesco, 143. 
Riboja, 171-72. 
Rifredi, 21 ^-17. 

S. Stefano a, 216-17. 
Rignalla, S. Maria a, 254. 
Rimezzano, the, 113. 
Roads of Italy, 42, 261-64. 
Rosano, 186-87. 

SS. Annunziata, 187-88. 

S. Prugnano, 187. 



Rovezzano, 41-43. 

S. Andrea a, 40, 42-43. 

S. Michele a, 43. 
Ruballa, S. Giorgio a, 111-12. 

S. Quirico, 109-10. 

S. Andrea di Scozia, 4-6. 

S. Antonino, 6, 45. 

S. Bartolo in Tuto, 195. 

S. Bridget of Sweden, 250-51. 

S. Brigida di Scozia, 4, 297-98. 

S. Casciano a Decimo, 75. 

S. Donato a Lucardo, 96. 

S. Donato di Scozia, 4. 

S. Donato a Torre, 73-75. 

S. Gersole, 142. 

S. Gervasio, 44. 

S. Gherardo da Villamagna, 178- 

82. 
S. Giovanni Gualberto, 97-98, 150. 
S. Giusto a Ema, 144-45. 
S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, 21^ 

and note. 
S. Marta, 230-31. 
S. Martino in Campo, 210. 
S. Martino alia Palma, 96, 192- 

94. 
S. Mauro, 86. 

S. Miniato al Monte, 148-54. 
S. Pietro Igneo, 97. 
S. Piero in Palco, 253. 
S. Piero a Ponti, 85. 
S. Quentin, loi. 
S. Romolo, 46, 56. 
S. Salvatore, 153. 
S. Salvi, 2. 
Sacchetti, 223. 
Saletta, 258-59. 
Savonarola, 227-28. 
Scandicci, S. Maria a, 195. 
Scarlatti, 68. 
Servites, the, 310-15. 
Sesto, 237. 
Settignano, i, 31-34. 

S. Maria a, 33. 
Settimello, 239. 

Arrighetto da, 239. 
Settimo, Badia a, 94-101. 

S. Giuliano a, 94. 
Sforza, Caterina, 272, 273. 



322 COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE 



Sieci, 292-93. 
Signa, 37, 116-26. 

Beata Giovanna di, 120-25. 

Ponte a, 125-26. 
Signano, S. Giusto a, 196. 
Simonetta, 50, 223. 
Solicciano, S. Pietro a, 94. 
Spedale di S. Bartolommeo, 305. 

di S. Giovanni di Dio, 109. 
Stilicho, 46. 
Stinche, Le, 92. 

Tabernacolo di Ant. Vene- 

ZIANO, 76. 

della Fattoria Orsini, 88, 89. 
Tavarnuzze, 156. 

S. Lorenzo, alle Rose, 172. 
Terenzano, 39-40, 176. 

S. Martino a, 39. 
Torre degli Agli, 75-76. 

a Decimo, 294. 

del Gallo, 145. 
Trespiano, 305. 
Trinitarian Order, 218. 

Ugnano, 102. 
Usimbardi, 63, 68. 
Selvaggiade', 63-65. 

Val d'ARNO, 37, 40, 93, 94-95, 

292-93 ; floods in, 102. 
Val d'Ema, 37. 
Val di Mugnone, 59, 60, 257-70. 

S. Bastiano in, 267. 

S. Lorenzo a Basciano in, 269- 
70. 

S. Maria Maddalena in, 261, 
264-66. 
Valle delle Donne, 11, 23, 24-25. 
Vallombrosa, 65. 
Varchi, 47. 
Verrocchio, 223. 
Viale de' Colli, 148. 
Vicchio di Rimaggio, 254. 

S. Lorenzo a, 254-55. 
Vie— 

d'Affrico, 23, 25. 

Aretina Nuova, 41, 42. 

Aretina Vecchia, 105. 

Boccaccio, 44. 



I Vie {conti?med) — 

Bolognese, 230, 304-5. 
Capponcina, 43. 
delle Cave, 22. 
della Chiesa, 229. 
del Crocifisso, 175. 
Faentina, 261-62. 
Ferrucci, 60, 258. 
Flaminia, 263-64. 
Giovanni Leader, 6x. 
Pisana, 90. 
del Quarto, 217. 
Romana, 155-56. 
Strada Lucchese, 72, 80, 81. 
Strada Pistoiese, 72, 75, 80. 
Strada di Prato, 238. 
Torre degli Agli, 26. 
Ville— 

deir Ambrogiana, 137. 

Antinori, 172, 253. 

Bellosguardo, 92-93. 

Boccaccio, Casa di, 11-13. 

Cafaggiuolo, 51. 

Capponcina, La, 43. 

Castel di Poggio, 37, 61-63, 

Castel Pulci, 192. 

di Castello, 270-75. 

Ciliegio, 23. 

Corsini, 27.;-8o. 

Le Corte, 109. 

Ferdinanda a Artimino, 212. 

Gamba, 239. 

Gamberaja, 175. 

Ginori, 236. 

Lardarel, 143. 

Loretino, 41. 

Mathilde, 75. 

Medici a Careggi, 51-52, 221- 

29. 
Medici a Fiesole, 50-52. 
Monetti, 259-60. 
II Palagio, 21. 
Palmerino, 23. 
Palmieri, 23, 26-29, 44- 
Papiniano, 48. 
della Petraja, 275-79. 
Petrucci, 142. 
Poggio a Cajano, 197-206. 
Poggio Gherardo, 3, 15-18, 146- 
48. 



INDEX 



323 



Ville {continued) — 
Porziuncola, La, 43. 
Pratolino, 305-9. 
Romanelli, Casa, 36. 
Ronzi, 115. 
Le Rose, see Antinori. 
Rospigliosi, 113. 
di Rusciano, 245-50. 
Salviati, 230. 
Terra Rossa, 230. 



Ville {continuea) — 

Torigiani, 194. 

Vincigliata, 6, 36, 67-71. 
Villamagna, 178-82. 

S. Donnino a, 178. 

S. Romolo a, 178. 
Vincigliata, 6, 36, 67-71. 

Romance of, 63-65. 

SS. Maria e Lorenzo a, 65-67. 
Volterra, 37, 61. 



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